SUNY New Paltz Professor Howie Good’s 2015 Prize Americana-winning collection of original poetry, Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements, is now available from The Poetry Press, the imprint of the award-issuing organization Press Americana.
Good’s latest publication, which appears nearly 15 years into his career as a published poet, finds him working in a variety of poetic forms, including free verse and prose poetry. It captured the Prize Americana, given annually to a previously-unpublished, book-length work of original poetry that treats American culture among its subjects, and in so doing has captured the attention of the contemporary poetry community.
“In Dangerous Acts Starring Unstable Elements the masterful Howie Good teaches us to look coolly and directly into the eye of quotidian surreality,” said poet Brad Rose. “Although the speakers in Good’s stark, yet luminous, poems variously inform us that: the future consists of a certain unrest in all that has been, that behind every work of art lies an uncommitted crime, and that the rider may guide the horse, but only in the direction the horse wants to go, we learn from Good’s inimitable powers of ironic description, keen eye for dark paradox, and unfailingly calm counsel to ably navigate an often up-ended, disconcerting territory. Indeed, with Good’s skillful guidance we learn not only to negotiate this weird and mysterious world, but to relish it.”
Howie Good is professor of digital media and journalism at SUNY New Paltz. He has authored several poetry collections, including Beautiful Decay and The Cruel Radiance of What Is from Another New Calligraphy, Fugitive Pieces from Right Hand Pointing Press, and Lovesick from The Poetry Press of Press Americana. He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely.
