On the surface, L. S. Klatt鈥檚 poems are airy and humorous鈥攚ith their tales of chickens wandering the highways of Ohio and Winnebago trailers rolling up to heaven and whales bumping like watermelons in a bathtub鈥攂ut just under the surface they turn disconcertingly serious as they celebrate the fluent word.
Under the heat of inquiry, under the pressure of metaphor, the poems in Cloud of Ink liquefy, bend, and serpentine as they seek sometimes a new and sometimes an ancient destination. They present the reader with existential questions as they side-wind into the barbaric; the pear is figured as a 鈥渨ild boar鈥 and the octopus is 鈥済utted,鈥 yet primal energies cut a pathway to the mystical and the transcendent. The poetic cosmos Klatt creates is loquacious and beautiful, strange and affirmative, but never transparent. Amid 鈥渁 maelstrom of inklings,鈥 the writer鈥攁nd the audience鈥攎ust puzzle out the meaning of the syllabary.
鈥淟. S. Klatt鈥檚 new collection creates a taxonomy of mystery, magic, surprise. Like a cloud, it floats through the reader鈥檚 mind with playful shapeliness鈥攂ut like ink, it leaves a darker, and lasting, impression.鈥濃擱obert N. Casper, publisher, jubilat
鈥溾橧 am adrift in a burned-out canoe / without a helmsman.鈥 If you鈥檝e ever felt like this, then L. S. Klatt鈥檚 Cloud of Ink should offer you some kind of cold鈥攊n this case the right kind of cold鈥攃omfort. Klatt鈥檚 poems broadcast elegiac tones and redemptive notes; their combinations underscore the conviction we know by poetry鈥檚 precisions, in some places and at some times felt as hope in spite of despair.鈥濃擠ara Wier, author, Reverse Rapture
鈥淪winging between the midwestern vernacular of James Wright and the vexed wistfulness of Richard Hugo, these poems are nearly unquotable, so tightly joined are they of languages variously plainspoken and wildly swooping. Klatt鈥檚 seemingly spare and diffuse lyrics artfully assemble a complex and rich vision, generous in intention, provocative in enactment, ecstatic in spirit. A wild and welcome collection of poems from an exciting and dynamic thinker.鈥濃擪azim Ali, author, Bright Felon
In his 海角乱伦社区Poetry Prize winner, Cloud of Ink, L.S. Klatt offers a sharp eye and precise, resonant lines: gutting an octopus, he鈥檚 soaked in ink and 鈥淸wears] it like opera gloves in the moonlight.鈥 Then there鈥檚 this sharp observation: 鈥淓merson revised:/ wise moments are fire-/flies that scar the countenance ever.鈥 鈥Library Journal
