Maya Angelou said that "poetry and music are the best at the highest level of the human mind". In his latest collection, Random Riffs (Spartan Press), poet Ken Gierke invites the reader to 'take a drive' with him and Mingus, Coltrane or Monk, or to glide along with him and Nina Simone as he kayaks his favorite streams.Gierke's poems, written to the beats of his eclectic musical playlist take the reader on a journey, sometimes whimsically inspired by the Grateful Dead, sometimes tuned to the more solemn notes of Mingus or Mozart. Gierke's writing often cleverly weaves in just a partial line or two from the musical inspiration as his thoughts drift along to become these enticing poems. In this new collection, the beat goes on, giving the reader a glimpse into his life, inspired by his personal musical favorites like The Who, Hendrix, Brubeck, the Beatles, Mingus, Monk, Mozart, or Coltrane. This collection is not really a 'long strange trip', but an inspired collection.Accessible, easy to read, each poem is alive with the beats of his playlist in each line.
-Sharon SingingMoon, author of Random Seed and The Weight of One Hummingbird Feather
I have just completed Ken Gierke's new Chapbook "Random Riffs" and I don't need any other reasons to love this collection other than the spare rhythmic cadence of his words and the road that has spawned them. But I also have the fact that so many of these poems draw added parental DNA from the songs that inspired them. Ken writes great poetry, but he also has amazing taste in music. From John Coltrane to George Thoroughgood, he finds the aesthetic center of each song and composer he listens to on his long road trips and communicates that ephemeral something found in all good music into words on the page. Most of these poems were written on the fly. He dictated them into his phone in real time while traveling throughout our country. I highly recommend this collection to anyone who loves words and who wants to get an even deeper understanding of how music shapes our perceptions as we travel on our chosen roads.
-Rick Christiansen, author of Bone Fragments, Spartan Press 2024
"I once was young, / and life was always long," Ken Gierke thinks to himself as he and the reader are transported along for the ride: the long road to wherever the hell we are now. Gierke's Random Riffs aren't random at all. These are the meaningful musings of the open-road samurai, armed with unleaded gasoline and a well-curated playlist of jazz and classic rock. Gierke's poems will make you want to put on your favorite songs and hit the open road; you may even be surprised where you'll want to drive. This isn't escapist freewheeling or some kind of neo-Kerouac treatise on road trips and their eventual brush with bop. This is classic Gierke: relatable, moving, expressive. These poems hit hard because Gierke knows that even the simplest moments and even the most familiar songs stand much bigger than their surface impressions. Whether it's some backwoods highway or a Coltrane classic, "we both know / there's got to be one helluva story behind it."
- Timothy Tarkelly, author of A Horse Called Victory and The You We Know and Love.
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