Spooky action at a distance, David Alpaugh, Alpaugh

David Alpaughs Spooky Action at a Distance--a collection of double-title poems--include irreverent, insightful commentary on subjects both current and timeless. The poetic form is Alpaughs invention. Masterfully versified with taut control of form and content, on topics ranging from the high precision of science and mathematics to the vagaries and subjectivity of art, this unique collection contains a seemingly endless supply of wit, witticism, wonders, and revelations.

PRAISE FOR SPOOKY ACTION AT A DISTANCE:

I cant count how many times I laughed out loud while reading David Alpaughs Spooky Action at a Distance. Alpaughs wit is so original, so outlandish, so outrageous, that at first its hard to believe hes pulling off one after another of these double-title poems, a form he invented and one that could not be better suited to his brilliant, iconoclastic mind. As impressive as Alpaughs poetic skill--his dexterity, musical ear and gift for turning clich s on their heads--is his range of reference. From childhood to history to mythology to politics to literature and back, Alpaugh takes us on a magical mystery tour through a universe of his own making.
-- Lynne Knight, author of The Persistence of Longing

For me, Alpaughs wit--in the old high metaphysical sense of that word--is the primary source of his power and virtue. He is an insatiably curious man who somehow manages to get everything into his poems. In Spooky Action at a Distance, Alpaugh is all about serious play and endlessly capable of surprise. Tracking the moves he makes connecting double-title after double-title is its own reward, a pleasure so pure as not to be missed.
-- William Slaughter, editor of Mudlark

David Alpaughs Spooky Action at a Distance offers readers a cornucopia of delights, complications, and some truly moving insights--all in an intriguing new form of his own invention. Alpaughs double-title form shows how two titles can be separate, like two photons miles apart, yet entangled in meaning and intent. Alpaugh is an excellent poetic space travel guide. This collection reminds me of the language used to describe properties of quarks--strangeness and charm. Alpaughs poems are structured, but still filled with plenty of actual strangeness and charm. And one need not enter a particle accelerator to discover these surprises. Just get this book
-- Kathleen Lynch, author of Lucky Witness

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

David Alpaugh holds degrees in English from Rutgers University and the University of California, Berkeley, where he was both a Woodrow Wilson and Ford Foundation Fellow. His poems have appeared in more than a hundred literary journals from Able Muse to Poetry to ZYZZYVA, and his first collection, Counterpoint, won the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize from Story Line Press. David Alpaughs essays, The Professionalization of Poetry (Poets & Writers Magazine), Whats Really Wrong With Poetry Book Contests (Rattle), and The New Math of Poetry (Chronicle of Higher Education)--have been widely discussed online. His musical play, Yesteryear: 3 Days in Paris with Fran ois Villon, was recently published by Scene4. Since he debuted the double-title poem in Mudlark in 2016, more than a hundred have appeared in journals and anthologies. He currently teaches literature for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at their UC Berkeley and Cal State East Bay campuses.