Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Ken Koprowdki ~ an interview and his book ~ Father's Collected Poems


I AM PLEASED TO WELCOME AUTHOR
Ken Koprowski



TITLE: Fathers (Collected Poems 1973-2015)
RELEASE DATE: July 30, 2016
AUTHOR: Ken Koprowski
KEYWORDS: fathers, fatherhood, poetry, parenthood, wilderness, war, death and survival, love, triumph
CATEGORIES: Poetry/Family
PAGE COUNT: 66
ISBN: 978-0692734827
IMPRINT: Veritas


AUTHOR BIO:
Ken Koprowski is a poet, writer, communications consultant, and educator. His collection of poetry, Fathers – Collected Poems 1973-2015, is being published by Ravenswood Publishing in the spring of 2016. In addition to being a prolific writer, he is an award-winning creative director and producer, and photographer. He earned his M.A. in Creative Writing with a specialization in poetry and completed his doctoral coursework at Syracuse University before pursuing a career in public relations. He is working on a second book of poetry and a collection of short stories entitled Draft Dodgers. 

He currently teaches advanced public relations writing and a range of public relations subjects in the Master’s programs at New York University, Iona College and Manhattanville College. In addition, he teaches crisis communication and reputation management – courses he designed -- in the MBA program and business communications at UConn Stamford.

Ken has extensive advertising, marketing and communication management experience. He served as corporate spokesperson in diverse, complex and difficult situations. Ken has written speeches for many well-known corporate leaders, annual and CSR reports, OPEDs, communications plans, ads, video and audio scripts, websites, blogs, and more. He recently edited, and wrote the introduction and chapter on using digital and social media in crisis communications for a popular crisis communications handbook.

Ken grew up in the Midwest – in Chicago and central and northern Wisconsin. For the past 40 years, he’s lived and worked in New York, southwestern Connecticut and southern Vermont. He and his wife of 35 years have three sons and a daughter, and they in turn have nine children of their own.



BANTER – STUFF ABOUT YOU

Q: How would you describe yourself as a color? Think personality here. Are you a light and airy pastel person, or more of a deep, dark, sultry and mysterious color?
A: Green for most of the year, then amber and grey-white when the snow comes. My eyes reflect this -- they are blue-green-gray hazel. And as we know, they are the window to the soul.

Q: Are you a morning person, or a midnight candle burner?
A: Midnight for most of my life, but as I age, I’m starting the day and ending it sooner. I’m drinking less coffee, too.

Q: Tell me one thing about each of the four seasons you like. It can be anything.
A:        Winter = I love the outdoors and walking in the snow is both invigorating and soothing.
            Spring  = The mystery of life repeats itself, earlier and earlier each year. There are buds forming on the lilacs in mid-January and forsythia is budding, too.
            Summer = As above, green and the scents of summer. (And, golf.)
            Fall = The world winding down, preparing for a long rest.

Q: Tell me something you would like your readers (fans) to know about you.
A: I’ve trained as a photographer and worked as a photojournalist. This training helps me to see the world in a way that inspires my writing. Recall Christopher Isherwood’s words: “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.”
Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

Q: If you could morph into any creature what would it be?
A: Black standard poodle.
If you don’t mind me asking, why?   
A: Few creatures have it as good as my black standard poodle, Hudson. Very few creatures have as good a life as a dog that lives with a doting human. Of course, he’s a fabulous friend and companion.

BOOKS – ABOUT THE CRAFT

Q: When did you start writing and why?
A: I recall my first poem was a limerick about a boy name Farrell who went over Niagara in a barrel, typewritten in a paper circle and posted on my fourth-grade bulletin board.

Q: Where do you get your ideas?
A: From the cloth of life and the electricity that it sparks in my mind.

Q: How did you come to write your genre of choice?
A: Reading, which is a great way to improve your craft and through the encouragement of other writers and teachers. There is a performance aspect to poetry -- readings are great fun -- and when you hear poetry read, you better appreciate the rhythms created by the way the words appear on the page. One of my writing professors, Philip Booth, explained punctuation as “the pauses between breaths as we read aloud.” He is correct.

Q: What do you think is the hardest part of writing a book?
A: Having enough time or possibly the disciple to use the time I have productively.

Q: Which element of book writing is most difficult for you?
A: Publishing.

Q: Have your characters ever taken the story in a different direction than you had originally planned? Do you have a for instance, for us?
A: A bit. But never a complete surprise. The greatest surprises come with research, like learning about the atrocities by the Germans in the Argonne during WW I. For example, they would bomb an area that they expected the American to enter in a few days with mustard gas knowing that it would remain dormant in the soil and when the U.S. infantrymen arrived they would activate the gas without warning using heavy explosive shells. This “technique” killed more than 500 daily, because the men were tricked into not wearing their gas masks.

Q: What geographical locations are your favorite and why?
A: Southern Vermont and most of Italy.



BOOKS - NOW LETS PROMOTE – STRUT YOUR STUFF


Q: What are you working on now? Would you like to share anything about it?
A: My current collection of poems, “Postcards to the living,” is about the messages the departed “send” us when our memories are triggered by something in the landscape or news or intersecting thoughts or even a calendar date or holiday. It begins with a “message” from my late friend and golf partner -- he missed our scheduled game because of an unexpected pulmonary embolism in Prague. I played the round with my memories of him. The departed have ways of reminding us of how we miss them and why. I’m also shaping a book - probably a series of interrelated short stories about the Vietnam War era and its impact on families.

Q: How can we find you? Do you have a web page, Facebook page or any buy links?
A:   Yes, I do. Here are the links.
 
AUTHOR LINKS:
http://www.koprowskicomm.com
http://twitter.com/KenKoprowski
http://www.linkedin.com/in/kenkoprowski



Buy Links:








ONE LINER:
Fathers is an inspiring, highly emotive collection of poems exploring fatherhood – its mysteries, triumphs, magic, humor, pain, and loss.  In it the poet illustrates that being a Dad is perhaps the most rewarding aspect of living, and at times, one of the most frustrating -- engaging all that is human in the reader.

SYNOPSIS:
Fathers is an inspiring and highly emotive collection of poems spanning 40 years. Fatherhood is the inspiration for much of this book – its mysteries, triumphs, magic, humor, pain, and loss.  In it the poet – an acute observer and lyrical writer – explores fatherhood from the perspective of a grandson, son, father, husband, and grandfather. His poems illustrate that being a dad is perhaps the most rewarding aspect of living, and at times, one of the most frustrating. The pages of this remarkable volume will engage all that is human in the reader.

Excerpt/Sample 

southern vermont symphony

throughout the night freezing rain
coats the mountainsides
every twig pine bough trunk rock ledge road
coated
by dawn, each weighed down with
crystalline coat
a tinkling concert begins
first ever so
softly
and as the sun rises
behind the clouds
andante patter with crescendos
as boughs spring free in rebellion
or self-preservation, sudden
crashes cymbals
in a wild arrangement now
vivace
rush of ice falling until
the middle March symphony suddenly ends
leaving a silvery carpet sparkling and
crackling underfoot
illuminating my walk

Copyright ã2016-2017 Kenneth M. Koprowski. All rights reserved.



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