Knute Skinner - Bookstore

Memoir:

Help Me to a Getaway, Salmon Poetry, 2010
In 1958, Knute Skinner, a Ph.D. candidate at Iowa University, made an impulsive decision to leave for the Canary Islands and spend the rest of his life there writing poetry. His travels took him to Ireland, Denmark, England, Spain, Italy, and France. Along the way, his adventures involved diverting men and romantic women, and all the time he was experimenting with his art. Help Me to a Getaway, a memoir of his two-year sojourn, describes a Europe that no longer exists and tells a story which was not at all what the author expected.

paper

€15.00

$25.00

purchase

Poetry Collections in print:

click on a book cover to read a poem selected from the book

read a poem from 'Fifty Years: Poems 1957-2007'

Fifty Years: Poems 1957-2007, Salmon Poetry, 2007.
A collection of poems published over a 50 year period.
"Knute Skinner's Fifty Years: Poems 1957-2007 gives us all a chance to re-live a life worth reading. Skinner does the lot: the sacred, the profane, the formal and the loose, and does them all wonderfully well." -John W. Sexton
read a review by Maggie Kelly
read a review by Jennifer Matthews
read a review by Wayne Burrows

paper

€15.00

$25.00

purchase

The Other Shoe, Pavement Saw Press, 2005.
A chapbook collection of twenty-two poems, winner of the 2003-04
Pavement Saw poetry chapbook competition.
"Brief narrative poems marked by haunting ambiguities...An act of literary levitation in a book that entices and delights but refuses complete resolution." -Washington Poets Association Newsletter

paper

€5.00

$6.00

purchase

Stretches, Salmon Poetry, 2002.
Skinner's most recent collection features love poems as well as brief narratives and satirical sketches. Lyrical responses to nature interact with spiritual responses to the material world. "It's worth whatever stretches might be required to put it into your personal library." -Joseph Green

paper

€9.00

$12.50

purchase

read a poem from 'An Afternoon Quiet...'

An Afternoon Quiet and Other Poems, Pudding House Publications, 1998.
A chapbook collection of sixteen poems.
"From the moment he invites the reader into his quiet room things begin to happen, even though he says in the title poem, 'Nothing at all happened/ nothing at all.' 'Attendance' alone is worth the price of admission." -Tom Erdmann

paper

€6.00

$7.95

purchase

The Cold Irish Earth: New and Selected Poems of Ireland, 1965-1995, Salmon Poetry, 1996.
Along with new poems set in Ireland, this collection includes work from
A Close Sky over Killaspuglonane and other out-of-print books.
"Skinner carries a universe of poetic insight wherever he goes." -Paul Gillie

paper
hard cover

€9.00
€12.00

$11.50
$15.00

purchase

What Trudy Knows and Other Poems, Salmon Poetry, 1994.
An unusual group of poems, each a brief telling of a moment in the life of one or more imaginary characters. The poems probe a variety of human characters. "There are works of considerable power, as in the title poem." -Roz Cowman

paper

€9.00

$11.50

purchase

Out-of-print collections (available from the author while stocks last):

The Bears and Other Poems, Salmon Poetry, 1991.
"A radical stylistic departure dizzily traversing boundaries of gender and class identity, these monologues give multiple voice to charged encounters between the sexes." -Anthony Roche "This is a stunning collection." -Aidan Murphy

paper
hard cover

€6.00
€10.00

$ 7.95
$12.95

purchase

read a poem from 'Learning to Spell Zucchini'

Learning to Spell Zucchini, Salmon Poetry, 1988.
"In a time when many poets cannot resist the grand gesture, Skinner's art is in the achievement of presence in the places we go to: in field, kitchen, bar, dictionary, anecdote, joke, love bower." -James Liddy

paper

€4.50

$5.50

purchase

Selected Poems, Aquila Press, 1985.
A selection of poems from Skinner's first six books. "If you want to know how real poetry reads, buy this book, read it, and keep it." -Leonard Blackstone

paper

€6.00

$7.95

purchase