New Book! Saving Singletrees by Leo Dangel

9780982382882WSC Press is happy to announce Leo Dangel’s new book of poetry, Saving Singletrees. This is the ninth book in the Kloefkorn Series published by the WSC Press.

“What I most admire about Leo Dangel’s work is his tact—by that I mean his unerring ability to know what not to say. He is a master of understatement, of a kind of dryness and reserve that, paradoxically, is the sign of a pathos too great to limit in language. Dangel exemplifies both the plain style, that Yvor Winters praised, and the Ovidian principle that the greatest art seems artless. Accordingly, Dangel consistently eschews self-displaying flash, and his humor and light touch always serve a seriousness. One poem in the book speaks of “pleasure” that “hasn’t stopped,” and Pleasure is the presiding deity of Dangel’s poetic world. If you weary of the literary scene’s latest fashionable poses and predictable unpredictabilities, you may find refuge in Leo Dangel.”

—Philip Dacey, author of Gimme Five

The Kloefkorn Series, in honor of State Poet William Kloefkorn, cuts across every genre, snatching books that embody creativity, originality, and a new way of looking at something. Authors selected also share a connection with the Great Plains.

Leo Dangel’s previously published works include;

  • Keeping Between the Fences, Westerheim Press, 1981
  • Old Man Brunner Country, Spoon River Poetry Press, 1987
  • Hogs and Personals, Spoon River Poetry Press,1992
  • Home from the Field: Collected Poems, Spoon River Poetry Press, 1997
  • The Crow on the Golden Arches, Spoon River Poetry Press,

About the Author:

Leo Dangel, the great-grandson of German and Danish homesteaders, was born in South Dakota and grew up on a farm near Freeman and Turkey Ridge. After receiving an MA from Emporia State University in Kansas, he taught at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall until his retirement as an emeritus professor of English. He now lives in Yankton, South Dakota. His poems have appeared in many anthologies and periodicals including Great River Review, The Midwest Quarterly, North Dakota Quarterly, Plainsong, Commonweal, Paddlefish, Zone 3, and Nebraska Territory. He was awarded The Elkhorn Prize and was twice a finalist in the Minnesota Book Awards. His poems have been read frequently on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac, and have appeared in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry column. In 1998, The Lyric Theater of Minneapolis staged a revue of Leo Dangel poems, Old Man Brunner Country, which continues to be performed in revivals.