prose poems
seen and heard through Charles Springer’s Window over the Sink let in dawn sometimes dressed as dusk and open up to sounds that somehow scale between din and damper. They walk and run you down a road, skip you across a street and occasionally lift you up in an air with no airport in sight. Most have as subjects someone or something you know or don’t know you know until their eager telling.
Charles Springer’s book of prose poems, Window over the Sink, is a tinderbox waiting to set fire to your eyelashes, the hair on the back of your neck, and everything in between. Pick up the top corner with your eyes, and everything you never thought flies out and settles on your shoulders like tiny sparks sizzling away at preconceived notions, dazzling your pupils with infinite pyrotechnics, and burning your tongue with a whole new language. Window over the Sink is the ember inside the itch of a universal burn. Hold this book and feel yourself shoved to the edge of tomorrow.
Rebecca Kinzie-Bastian, author of Charms for Finding
In Window over the Sink, Charles Springer gives us tragedy, but also the whole Polonius litany of “tragical-comical-historical-pastoral-poem unlimited” in this very real surreality. Window over the Sink is a pantry of the beatific and bestial, a cabinet of wonderful wonders. Springer’s panache puts a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval on the whole crazy spread of this out-of-control mad tea party of a book.
Michael Martone, author of Plain Air: Sketches from Winesburg, Indiana and The Complete Writings of Art Smith, The Bird Boy of Fort Wayne
In the tradition of James Tate and Russell Edson, Charley Springer creates prose poems that sing with absurdity. Sometimes his opening lines start off innocently, with no warning of the zany world you are about to enter. More often, however, he gives you a clue that just ahead lies the Springer world, where reality is optional. No matter where Springer takes you, it’s bound to lead to an intriguing place, with likable characters and an ending you did not anticipate. The end result is a mind-boggling work of art and a testament to the poet’s skill. A delightful entertaining read that takes poetry to the outer limits of what is possible and shows what a prose poem can do in the right hands.
Gene Twaronite, author of four poetry collections, including The Museum of Unwearable Shoes and Shopping Cart Dreams
Charles Springer:
A Pushcart Prize, Sonder Press Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction and Best of the Net nominee, Charles Springer is widely published in print and online. He has authored a poetry collection entitled Juice from Regal House Publishing, 2018, and a collection of prose poems entitled Nowhere Now Here from Radial Books, 2021.