Washing the Wings of the Angels
by Bob Heman

ISBN: 978-1-935835-33-2
Perfect Bound: $17.00
Publication Date: July 30, 2024
5 x 7 inches, 100 pages
PROSE POETRY

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As a poet of the imagination, Bob Heman’s “information” pieces create microcosms in which all things are possible, where language creates everything and anything, and into which reality sometimes rears its head. His “information” series reflects prose poems written over a span of almost thirty years and this collection, Washing the Wings of the Angels, draws upon seventy-nine written in the past decade that figure most securely, as well as most enduringly, in Heman’s consciousness. Written with no premeditation at all, these prose poems just happen, often taking on a life of their own, hopefully to take wing and surprise the reader with a startling and engaging juxtaposition of language and image.

From Washing the Wings of the Angels...

THEY TOLD the machine about the bears and the machine showed them a picture of a kaleidoscope. They told the machine about the mountain and the machine showed them the picture of a box of crayons. The machine became two machines and then four and then eight. Each was given a number that had no other meaning.

IN THE MOVIE the body weighs more than soap, more than the bouquet of orchids, more than the telescope filled with hamsters. In the movie the body is carried down the stairs to the place where the pool is beginning to breathe, to the place where the men resemble barnacles, to the place where the woman has been wrongly assembled. Each time the stars arrive a different word is released from the frog that has begun to resemble.

WASHING the wings of the dragonflies is nothing at all like washing the wings of the angels. It's not just the color and texture that differs, but the light that rubs off on your hands.