80 pages / 6.00 x 9.00 inches / no illustrations
Fred Chappell is the author of more than thirty volumes of poetry and prose. He has received the Bollingen Prize, the T. S. Eliot Award, and the Thomas Wolfe Prize. His fiction has been translated into more than a dozen languages and received the Best Foreign Book Award from the Académie Française. He was the poet laureate of North Carolina from 1997 to 2002.
“A familiar spirit is a magical being, often in animal form, that aids in witchcraft; Chappell casts cats in such eldritch rites with his usual graceful rhymes.”—Durham Independent
“That last quoted poem gives you an idea of the mastery that Chappell brings to rhyming poetry. The word choice does not seem forced; in fact, it seems inspired by maximum suggestibility rather than sound. . . . This is nearly an impossible task. Others’ faltering attempts give rhyming poetry a bad rep among modern poets.”—Asheville Citizen-Times
“Chappell . . . once again delivers poems that elevate his subject with style and nuance, clever rhymes, sly humor and classical allusions. Chappell celebrates the sublime and stately cats, the midnight marauders and temperamental toms, the ink-stained footprints left across the pages of our lives, the thieves and detectives that haunt our film noir dreams.”—Smoky Mountain News
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