David C. Kopaska-Merkel

The Steven C. Minkin (Union Chapel) Paleozoic Footprint Site ranks among the most important fossil sites in the world today, and Footprints in Stone recounts the accidental revelation of its existence and detailed findings about its fossil record.Currently 2,500 miles from the equator and more than 250 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico, the Minkin site was a swampy tropical forest adjacent to a tidal flat during the Coal Age or Carboniferous Period more than 300 million years ago. That fecund strand of sand and mud at the ocean’s edge teemed with the earth’s earliest reptiles as well as amphibians, fish, horseshoe crabs, spiders, jumping insects, and other fascinating organisms. Unlike dinosaurs and other large animals whose sturdy bodies left hard fossil records, most of these small, soft-bodied creatures left no concrete remains. But they did leave something else. Preserved in the site’s coal beds along with insect wings and beautifully textured patterns of primeval plants are their footprints, fossilized animal tracks from which modern paleontologists can glean many valuable insights about their physical anatomies and behaviors.The paleontological examination of fossil tracks is now the cutting-edge of contemporary scholarship, and the Minkin site is the first and largest site of its kind in eastern North America. Discovered by a local high school science teacher, the site provides both professional and amateur paleontologists around the world with a wealth of fossil track samples along with an inspirational story for amateur explorers and collectors.Authoritative and extensively illustrated, Footprints in Stone brings together the contributions of many geologists and paleontologists who photographed, documented, and analyzed the Minkin site’s fossil trackways. An engrossing tale of its serendipitous discovery and a detailed study of its fossil records, Footprints in Stone is a landmark publication in the history of paleontology.

In Risk Assessment, David C. Kopaska-Merkel, a master at speculative senryu and haiku, illuminates the dangers and risks inherent in life through horrific, whimsical, and fantastic beams of light. His tight, terse language can be enjoyed popcorn-like by the handful or earnestly like an elegantly presented gourmet meal. Humorous, ardent, and keen, these tiny poems will produce smiles and insight. For readers who like their poetry strange, brief, and brilliant, Risk Assessment is a darkly delightful dive into the unknown. Once you start reading them, you will find these poems are well worth the risk.

David C. Kopaska-Merkel is an exceptional poet who uses precise language and twisted speculation to forge a different, more nuanced world-view. In this book he takes those normal extremes of human imagery and... disassembles them, putting them back together in a Picasso-like state where some bits are offset, discolored, or too sharply in or out of focus. Perfect images in dark and light become speckled, tarnished, and imperfect. His works here, from poems about post-apocalyptic mutations to pieces dealing with shapeshifters and space travelers, are filled with creatures who are not so much extremes, or bigger than life, but are instead totally accessible because of the ordinariness of their cruelties, the normality of their mistakes and desires, and the pettiness of their wide-spread destruction. These are the small beings who do huge damage, the powerful divinities who act out of their small-mindedness, greed, and ignorance.

Devotion invests power in the object adored. Of course, so does fear. A childhood doll, an adolescent crush, or the stranger downstairs-any of these might become imbued with godlike significance, or with monstrous power. In this quirky collection of short tales, David C. Kopaska-Merkel (former Star*Line editor; current Dreams & Nightmares publisher) presents an assemblage of supernaturally endowed subjects that by turns amuse or amaze-and somehow always perturb.

SETI Hits Paydirt is a scrumptiously twisted sequence of fibonacci-no ku, unlove poems, delicacies for the ET palate, and more outrageous things. It's playful (but not sweet), enigmatic (but not obfuscatory), snarky (but not surly), and otherworldly (but not from any otherworld you've ever visited). You won't come away understanding aliens, but you'll realize how na ve you were before. The inside of your head will be much larger than the outside when you finish reading this chapbook. -Mary Turzillo Nebula and Elgin award winner author of Lovers & Killers

Halloween HaikuSelected and Edited by Lester Smithgrave exhalations of seventeen syllablessure to make you gaspCome celebrate All Hallows Eve in Popcorn Press's third annual anthology of horror poetry.Come trick-or-treating with two dozen celebrated poets, in ninety-five haiku and related poems, plus a bonus monster card game Come spend the night in a haunted house of verse dedicated to the Halloween holiday. We dare you