Classifieds and Other Poems

Classifieds and Other Poems is Benjamin C. Krause’s 36-page, 30-poem chapbook available now from erbacce-press. It is often shortened as Classifieds. To find out more, scroll down or go directly to the Section you’re interested in.

Sections:

  1. Overview
  2. About the Poems
  3. What People Are Saying
  4. List of Poems
  5. Buy Classifieds and Other Poems

Overview:

Classifieds and Other Poems contains 30 poems, which can be broken up the following ways:

  • 14 Classified poems
    • 9 of these are previously unpublished
    • 5 are previously published
  • 16 other poems
    • 8 of these are previously unpublished
    • 8 are previously published
  • A total of 17 previously unpublished poems and 13 previously published poems.

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About the Poems:

The fourteen Classified poems are six-line, one-stanza poems that take the form of classified ads in a newspaper. You can read more about this ongoing series here.

The other sixteen poems showcase a wide range of forms, subjects, and themes.

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What People Are Saying:

The entire chapbook is wonderfully written, but it’s these “classifieds” that especially speak to me. The ambiguity leaves me imagining that they’re little peep holes in a door, skewing the face on the other side, just enough to realize you don’t know who is knocking at three a.m. These peep holes are just enough to notice something that looks a lot like a heart is falling out the bottom of a shirt – just enough to see that the smallest detail is sometimes greater than the “bigger picture”…. I think this belongs in your hands, and then on your bookshelf, and then in your hands again.

—Robert Henry, Leaf Garden Magazine. Read his review in Issue 9 of Leaf Garden .

Classifieds and Other Poems is a process of the ritual of esteemed poetic language, one that, within the simplicity and engaging disposition of each poem, delivers to the reader an abundance of altruistic imagery.

—Felino A. Soriano, author of 22 collections of poetry, including Intersecting Views of the Possible Interaction. Read more.

Here we have a poet who is the master of the back story – there is a variety of narratives disguised in the language of adverts and notes. The style is succinct and understated, and all the stronger for that.

—Mandy Pannett, author of Bee Purple, Frost Hollow, and Allotments in the Orbital. Read more.

Benjamin Krause’s poems are a collective cri de coeur. One poem references Sisyphus, but the myth is a thread sewing all the poems together. Even our losses, Krause reminds us, have a weight that bears down on us and which we can’t easily abandon. The details of our lives form the rock we all must roll uphill as long as our lungs draw breath. For Krause, the poetic impulse helps alleviate some of that daunting burden.

—Joel Allegretti, author of Father Silicon.

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List of Poems:

Legend:
Previously Unpublished
Previously Published

  1. “Classified 1.” First published in Leaf Garden Magazine, Issue 7, p. 1.
  2. “Classified 2.” First published in Counterexample Poetics.
  3. “Classified 3.”
  4. “Classified 4.”
  5. “Classified 5.”
  6. “Classified 6.”
  7. “Classified 7.”
  8. “Classified 8.”
  9. “Classified 9.” First published in Leaf Garden Magazine, Issue 7, p. 1.
  10. “Classified 10.” First published in Boston Literary Magazine, Winter 2009-10 issue.
  11. “Classified 11.” First published in Leaf Garden Magazine, Issue 7, p. 1.
  12. “Classified 12.”
  13. “Classified 13.”
  14. “Classified 14.”
  15. “Con Artist, The.”
  16. “Day the Devil Came to Dinner, The.” First published in fourpaperletters.
  17. “Echo, The.” First published in Leaf Garden Magazine, Issue 7, p. 1.
  18. “Frostbite.”
  19. “If Antony Had Won.” First published in fourpaperletters.
  20. “Life Science.“
  21. “Lust-painted Lips.” First published by Ophelia Street.
  22. “Mightier.”
  23. “New York Jewish Brown.”
  24. “Puddles.”
  25. “Pulling Inward.” First published in Counterexample Poetics.
  26. “Rain Clouds.” First published in Foundling Review, January 2010 Issue 2.
  27. “Rain Dance.” First published in Counterexample Poetics.
  28. “Shadow Beasts.”
  29. “Sisyphus.”
  30. “Sons of Israel, The.” First published in Tipton Poetry Journal, Winter 2009-10 issue.

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Buy Classifieds and Other Poems

Copies of Classifieds and Other Poems are always available from erbacce-press here. They cost 5 GBP (British pounds) which is about 8 U.S. dollars.

Classifieds Book has the following subpages: