Shira Dentz

Nin Andrews interviews me on CavanKerry Press’ blog about my new book, door of thin skins, here

Poet of the Month: Shira Dentz
April 2013

at Poetrynet.org: http://www.poetrynet.org/month/

Available online through Amazon and Barnes & Noble, & selected bookstores! Distributed by University Press of New England.
http://www.amazon.com/door-thin-skins-Emerging-Voices/dp/1933880368
http://www.cavankerrypress.org/emerging_sdentz_door.htmlhttp://www.upne.com/1933880365.html

A hybrid of poetry, prose, and visual elements, door of thin skins is a tale that unfolds in a psychotherapist’s and a state prosecutor’s office and the mind of the poet regarding it all–

door of thin skins is a perfect title for Shira Dentz’s latest work. In this fever dream of a book, Dentz’s language is like a spirit who can pass through the scrims of time and perspective, but not unscathed. These poems are the toll. She sings what fails to kill us. —Cornelius Eady

door of thin skins tracks the misuse of power in a patient/doctor relationship in shattering detail. A patient is cut off from her body and the doctor imposes his. Her senses have dispersed as if to escape the troubled site. In these poems, the experiences that tear the mind and the mind’s language must be recollected in language, which becomes a reenactment of the wounding. What the poet must do, and does, is let language be torn apart so that the senses (sense) may re-collect in beauty, in the body of the poem. —Eleni Sikelianos

Here is David as a 21-year-old confused girl in boyish clothes and Goliath as a golden-credentialed 60-year-old psychotherapist in orthopedic shoes who jeopardizes his career when he sexually crosses the line with his young patient, then continually questions the reality of her perceptions. Shira Dentz’s brilliant poetic amalgam of circumstance and the mind’s second-guessing, door of thin skins presents a contemporary David and Goliath tale that unfolds in a psychotherapist’s office, a state prosecutor’s office, and the crystalline mind of the poet regarding it all. Poetry itself becomes the slingshot in this face-off. The poet’s clever innovation of an edgy and oddball brand of avant-garde song-and-response tells this tale through a mix of thought, feeling, fact, history, and personal history and a riveting pastiche of rhythmical poetry, visual poetry and prose poetry. Dentz triumphs in her dazzling and fractured narrative; door of thin skins startles and astounds. —Molly Peacock

Shira Dentz’s door of thin skins is not only an intimate narrative of seduction and abuse, but a tour de force of assemblage. Each gallery-worthy page is meticulously arranged, prose overlain with lyric sequences, visual space with visual density. From every angle, door of thin skins is a chilling and exquisite document.
—Karen Brennan

Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, 12/13/12: “a woman all about love yesterday.” by Shira Dentz

& watch/read on Poem Flow!

2nd edition, published by Shearsman Books, April 2012. Chapbook, 36pp.

Available for purchase from Shearsman Books, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.