Cover Art: seals on a beach - Helgoland, Germany by Vera Kuttelvaserova, licensed from Adobe Stock
The Sleeping Dogs of Lubec
by Rodger Martin
The Sleeping Dogs of Lubec
The Sleeping Dogs of Lubec is a collection of poetry and short prose pieces built around the sometimes subtle at other times quite public influence dogs generate as they integrate themselves into our culture.
"Rodger’s sleeping dogs don’t lie. They know their canine ancestors, their legends in ancient caves, and we learn of ourselves in our relation to them. Rodger deftly moves across history, at each stop showing where we fit, an existence we neglect at peril. This volume, a kind of “collected” through his career, engages at every turn, with sensuous, heartfelt lines, perfectly executed (some prose, a few cats, and several silly pups!). Open wherever you wish and be rewarded."— B. Eugene McCarthy
Praise for The Sleeping Dogs of Lubec
Rodger Martin’s poems romp, roll, and, sometimes, howl. They are heart-aching, heart-breaking, and—at heart—joyous. Seals glide in from the sea at night. Kin to the sleeping dogs of Lubec, they whisper in the ears of dreamers. The myths and bloody history of many cultures intertwine with bone-deep concern for our precious Earth. I will share these poems and (needs be) return to them again and again.—Rebecca Rule, author of Live Free and Eat Pie!: A Storyteller's Guide to New Hampshire
Martin is building a mountain here, each poem a solid rock, each a world captured with amazing clarity, vision and artistry. —John Hodgen, winner of the 2005 Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) 2005 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry
Here are animals of many kinds, roaming now as in their ancient past. Here too are ourselves, our capacity for respect and care, but also for disregard and conflict, wars over the centuries. All these Rodger draws for us, for we are mutual voyagers with these canine and fellow creatures (a few cats…and some mutts). Read, listen, and see anew. —B. Eugene McCarthy is the author of Thomas Gray: The Progress of a Poet, co-author of Sound Ideas and co-editor of From Bondage to Belonging. He taught at Holy Cross for thirty-five years.
