FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 16, 2000 #267
Contact: Heather Haas
(816) 235-1601*
haash@umkc.edu
 

BkMk Press Publishes Award-winning Poetry Collection that Explores Ties Between Physical, Emotional Identities

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The Resurrection Machine, a prize-winning collection of poems by Steve Gehrke, will be published this month by BkMk Press (Book Mark Press) at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Gehrke is the first winner of the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry. His manuscript was one of 526 entries for the prize, which the press sponsors biennially.

Final judging for the prize was conducted by Miller Williams, director emeritus of the University of Arkansas Press. A widely acclaimed poet and critic, Williams delivered the inaugural poem at President Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1997, and is the literary executor for John Ciardi's estate.

The poems in the collection explore the relationship between physical and emotional identity. The book's title, for example, is drawn from the poem "News Item: Man Receives First Hand Transplant." Within the poem, Gehrke states, "Our bodies are repaired with metallic/instruments, microscopes, and catheters/…suction hoses and scalpels…/the resurrection machine." Yet the patient also imagines his new hand's "history of touches," wondering to what extent this hand connects him to all of the physical and emotional memories of what the hand experienced in its previous life. In addition, Gehrke incorporates his own medical experiences inot his work including his kidney transplant operation in which he received a kidney donated by his sister.

"Steve Gehrke's poems chronicle the body's losses and recoveries," writes Nicole Cooley, 1995 Walt Whitman Award winner. "The poems in this collection introduce us to a daring and eloquent new voice in American poetry." And, poet Peggy Shumaker writes, "With surgical precision, Steve Gehrke's poems open us to the complex mysteries of our fragmented bodies and lives."

Gehrke is a fellow at the James Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a graduate of the creative writing program at Minnesota State University, Mankato. His poetry has appeared in several publications including Midwest Quarterly, Passages North, and the new anthology American Poetry: The Next Generation (Carnegie Mellon University Press).

Gehrke will read selections from The Resurrection Machine at 8 p.m. June 9 at The Writers Place, 3607 Pennsylvania Ave. Alice Friman, winner of the Ezra Pound Poetry Award, also will read from her works at the event. Tickets cost $3 for adults and $1 for students as well as for members of The Writer's Place.

BkMk Press established the Ciardi Prize in memory of John Ciardi, who taught at UMKC in the 1940s before becoming an editor of The Saturday Review and, later, a commentator for National Public Radio. BkMk Press published Ciardi's last poetry collection, Stations of the Air, in 1993.

For media review copies, or more information about The Resurrection Machine, contact (816) 235-2558*.

* Individuals with speech or hearing impairments may call Relay Missouri at (800) 735-2966 (TT) or (800) 735-2466 (voice).

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