Kung Fu of the Dark Father

Kung Fu of the Dark Father presents not only the poet's father, the author's own enigmas, but also a veritable lineage of men confronting what Lorca describes as the duende in art and life--mythology's insistence that one must enter the underworld before there is any hope of bearing light. Here we meet a destruction derby hero, the Rolling Stones, Freud's cocaine habit, Meriwether Lewis' less than heroic return from the great West; St. Augustine, Copernicus, Hemingway's third son--each facing a darkness that poetry helps bear. There are also wild gurus, wandering monks--a terrestrial crew despite celestial aspirations--the human in each of us, with clay feet under a tainted moon.

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- Praise for Dane Cervine's Poetry -

...has a fine sense both of language and the interconnectedness of human lives that for me is at the heart of poetry.

--Adrienne Rich, author of Later Poems: Selected & New



...poems that matter...the beauty and pain of life become indistinguishable. Deliciously full of joy, insight, and awe.

--Ellen Bass, author of Like a Beggar/



...it is really the passion and precision...that earns my full attention.

--Tony Hoagland, author of Application for Release from the Dream: Poems



...clear struck bells.

--Jane Hirshfield, author of The Beauty