Kung Fu of the Dark Father - Dane Cervine

Kung Fu of the Dark Father presents not only the poet’s father, the author’s own enigmas, but also a veritable lineage of men confronting what Lorca describes as the duende in art and life—mythology’s insistence that one must enter the underworld before there is any hope of bearing light. Here we meet a destruction derby hero, the Rolling Stones, Freud’s cocaine habit, Meriwether Lewis’ less than heroic return from the great West; St. Augustine, Copernicus, Hemingway’s third son—each facing a darkness that poetry helps bear. There are also wild gurus, wandering monks—a terrestrial crew despite celestial aspirations—the human in each of us, with clay feet under a tainted moon.

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- Praise for Dane Cervine’s Poetry -

…has a fine sense both of language and the interconnectedness of human lives that for me is at the heart of poetry.
     —Adrienne Rich, author of Later Poems: Selected ' New

…poems that matter…the beauty and pain of life become indistinguishable. Deliciously full of joy, insight, and awe.
     —Ellen Bass, author of Like a Beggar/

…it is really the passion and precision…that earns my full attention.
     —Tony Hoagland, author of Application for Release from the Dream: Poems

…clear struck bells.
     —Jane Hirshfield, author of The Beauty