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2002 Merchandise & Miscellaneous News Archives

January 29, 2002: Superman Poetry wins Paris Review Prize!

Krypton Nights, Bryan Dietrich's first volume of poetry, is the year 2001 winner of the Paris Review Prize in Poetry. The simplest thing to say about Krypton Nights is that almost every poem within conerns the DC Comics comic book character Superman. The result is priceless. Sometimes funny and often heartbreaking, these poems are anything but trite. Each is a careful construction and serious meditation on our 21st century reality, how we feel and who we are. This book's indulgence in pop culture recalls Dietrich's fellow Kansan Albert Goldbarth, and, like Goldbarth, Dietrich is a stunning poet who is poised to reveal to us our own identity, as quirky or quacky as that may be.

Born in Oklahoma City in 1965, Bryan Dietrich grew up watching bad horror movies and dreaming of becoming a comic book artist. He received his Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Southern California in 1988 and his Ph.D. in English from the University of North Texas in 1994. He is a recipient of the "Discovery"/The Nation Award, a Writers At Work Fellowship, and the Eve of St. Agnes Prize. His poems have appeared in the Paris Review, Prairie Schooner, The Nation, Chelsea, Quarterly West, The Western Humanities Review and many other journals. Currently, he is Chair of the English Department at Newman University in Wichita, Kansas, and is a proud member of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Fan Club.

For those unfamiliar with Bryan Dietrich's work we offer the following selection:

I Kent

Listen, it isn't even my planet.
I just work here. A man of letters, mild
mannered, nerves of less than steel. Yes, I can
outrun most anything - thieves, mid-range sports
sedans, Shoemaker-Levy - can chew
a mouthful of coal to a cud of diamonds,
but I'm not as Delphic as you dream. I get
sleepapnia, hemorrhoids, runs in my tights.

I like Gilligan's Island and late night horror
flick medleys. Thermonuclear trust funds,
Greenpeace for guns, heavy metal milk lobbyists...
None of it gets me wet the way it used to.
If I could, I'd curl up in my cape
with an old comic, an orange soda,
a little Vivaldi. No telephone
booths; just Ming the Merciless to take me

away. Oh well. Shit happens. Worlds collide,
babes fall out of the sky, grow up, get lives.
My flat's just over there. No, the brownstone.
Yeah, that one. Corner room, third from - No. up, up...
Anyway, I took this position because,
frankly, it looked like a job for me. Now
I'm not sure anymore. I'm tired of being,
well, necessary. You don't know what it's like.

Hardly feeling a thing, seeing through
people, overhearing assassination plots
two countries over and still needing
new underwear every Christmas. One day
I hate the boots, belt, bikini, this "S" appliqué;
the next, I feel like punching every hornrimmed
dweeb I see. Dad warned me it might be like this.
"Son," he said, "you'll just wanna come home." Problem is,

I can't.

For more information about Bryan Dietrich or to pre-order Krypton Nights visit the Zoo Press website.


2002 Merchandise & Miscellaneous News

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