Kirjahaku

A divergent paradigm. Look inside. If you think something should be possible but thus far hasn't proved out in practice, look here. If you think the answer lies in ever increasing complexity rather than essential simplicity, skip it. If you think that you are an inventor, philosopher, poet, free being, or just out of agreement this is your invitation.

This small book is compiled from essays written to myself while learning the poetry game- how I organized my thoughts and conclusions on the subject. They are, if nothing else, practical and workable tools to evaluate and create with. Things like... What beats Show-Me-Don't-Tell-Me hands down? And what the three primary component parts of poetry are (they are not taught)? Once you know them they can be used to improve or salvage a poem or a poetry project. Seriously. Not popular thoughts- these paragraphs are directly opposed to some of the most accepted ideas I've run across. However, those accepted ideas, once applied, often stopped me dead in my creative tracks. Once in a while when the road has gotten hard and it seems even harder ahead, I dust off my hat and find what I had already known and forgotten: importances and essentials.

Shouldn't all dictionaries start with AAAA and end with ZZZZZZZTZZ-ZTZZZ? Ka-BOOM does: it's a collection of sound effects from comic books, each one rigorously defined and cross referenced. Nowhere has the art of onomatopoeia been raised to higher heights than in the humble comic book. --TIME Digital Vol.5 No.5 /// Hey, comic book fans, good news. At long last there's a new dictionary and thesaurus of those odd words you only find in comics. KA-BOOM : A Dictionary of Comic Book Words, Symbols & Onomatopoeia..., compiled by Kevin J. Taylor, covers all those comic words, sounds and also includes the companion work BZZURKK The Thesaurus of Champions. Want to know what RINK-RIK means, how about BRAKK or KLUD? This book holds your answers. Taylor, who put 10 years of work into this compilation, has cited the comic books where the sound effects were used, cross referenced entries and defined them. The thesaurus is a quick guide, minus the definitions. An appendix gives a list of base forms, which is interesting in itself, particularly as some base words have either extra letters or missing letters to indicate such attributes as magnitude, volume or duration of the sound. Before you dismiss this work as too esoteric to be much use, it's worth noting that comic books encourage reluctant readers to read more and some teachers have found the book to be useful in vocabulary lessons, such as A. Simpson, an English language arts teacher from West Virginia. She said she wants to incorporate a lesson where students create their own dictionaries in the vein of KA-BOOM --The Now Newspaper /// I love comic book words, those strange collisions of consonants meant to convey the sounds of explosions or fists thudding into abdomens or minor super heroes being electrocuted. Kevin Taylor likes them even more, enough to have compiled an entire dictionary, from "AAAA ", a cry of pain from Dare Devil - The Man Without Fear (Vol.1, issue 3, 1993) to "ZZZZZZZTZZZTZZZ", the sound of mechanical parts coming undone, from Dead Pool: The Circle Chase (Issue 4, 1993). --The Sydney Morning Herald /// Kevin J. Taylor is a West Coast author and poet.

Self published poems and a few short tales told in verse. "3201 e's" (approximately the number of e's in the manuscript)-at first glance a very unpoetic title but beyond that a reflection on the making of poetry from common things. I believe a poem is finite. Poetry is not. Sometimes they travel together. I once collected comments from readers and ended up with more pages of things said about my poems than pages of poetry I'd written. These few are recent: "There's a light, divine freedom in your writing I've always loved." C.E."It's a wow. Warm, wonderful, full of wise and well spoken words. Always with a sense of humor, a sense of wonder, and new viewpoint to share." R.R."I read to the 5th one & have tears in my eyes " L.D.