John SkoylesReseñas

When I worked on my MFA Skoyles was the Director of my program -- and as well as being very good at exuding calm and competence, he is a fine poet, insightful reader, and all around decent human being. About ten years older than me, he is part of that last generation of serious roisterers, where to prove you were a poet you drank a lot, often smoked (anything), and slept with anybody who winked at you, including your students. (Such a big no-no by the mid-80's when I started the degree). In his twenties, while at Iowa and later as a fellow in Provincetown, Skoyles did not fully indulge but he partied and was present and had some adventures and downplays how hard he worked at his poetry and reading. What he marvels over (as do we) is the mysterious relationship with language, with words, that poets have, that no others have and that draws them into a tightly knit fellowship even if they are also all competitors. The book ends as he achieves a job teaching at Sarah Lawrence (my alma mater) but the story, of course continues beyond that. I think though that even without familiarity with Skoyles' milieu, if you are interested in the poetry scene of the late 70's and don't mind some mild political incorrectness (he reported what he saw, not what he did) you'll enjoy this read. ****

The Nut File is where untold stories hide. But, once you open this file, author John Skoyles’ untold stories and snippets balance themselves enticingly on the plate. Entries include irony, pathos and humor, presenting a world where doctor’s apprentices mustn’t kill patients; poet’s mustn’t kill themselves; and aunts won’t receive any flowers until the funeral.

Disconcerting, odd, with each flowing almost naturally from the last, these really short pieces dance from the page and persuade the reader to think—about dangerous dogs perhaps, or about God, or just about somewhat disordered beginnings, middles and ends. The pieces range in size from biting sentences—“The number one murderer of writers is self-importance”—to amusing anecdotes and (also amusing) lists of instructions. Satisfied at seeing an earlier character return, amused and bemused at a familiar situation gone wrong, sorrowful at life’s folly, startled at explicitly-detailed coming of age (and of rage)… the Nut File is a collection that cleverly combines sequence with singularity, and readers will be equally satisfied to dip into the book or to read it end-to-end.

Most memorable for me is a comment about convergent and divergent thinkers, and those of the latter ilk wearing the mask of the former. I feel like maybe I know the author, or he me. And we’ll converge somewhere on a divergent thought.

Disclosure: I don’t know the author, but I’ve read and enjoyed another of his books, and I enjoyed this fascinatingly different “file.”

I had previously read tales of the Iowa writer's workshop and this book gives a microscopic exam of the life and times of the characters therein. Mr. Skoyles memoir follows his path from working class bloke, grasping to find his "thing" in poetry, to his career in academia. At times, I lost track of the who's who as he trekked across the country from the Village, to university to summer workshops on the East Coast to Texas. The participants remained in a booze/drug haze, it seems, so no wonder I got lost in the fog. The 60's and 70's on college campuses was all that, sex, drugs, art, and cut-throat competition for the grant money. If you care to know who was zooming who in the cast of characters in the US literary world of that time period, then this is a must read. My thanks to the author and LibraryThing for a complimentary copy of the book.

John Skoyles' memoir reveals that poets often have as raucous and out of control lives during their formative years as musicians and artists. He uses vivid descriptions to introduce the reader to a bizarre cast of characters as they search for their "voice". Sometimes it was hard to keep track of who was who but an enjoyable read, all in all.

John Skoyles’ memoir of a poet is poetically written. By turn irreverent, intriguing, philosophical and frivolous, it recreates a world of young men and women searching for self in a profession where rewards are often invisible, and intangibles are the stuff of success.

Skoyles himself is the initial outsider, working class youth with an unlikely passion for poetry. But the world he enters is filled with its own working class, frequently drunk, deliberately annoying, carefully and artfully casual as they break rules and live by pretense. “Hell-bent to become poets,” as an early quote reminds us, they frequently stand in their own way and manufacture their own demise.

In one wonderful scene, a poet gives a public reading, picking poems at random, even tearing pages from the book, theatrically sweating and sighing, and wrapping a bandana casually around his head, just as he ends with a poem of the Vietnam War. Suddenly accident is turned into art. He knew, and the reader knows he knew, exactly how he was playing his audience. And suddenly the famine of John Skoyles’ title moves to feast in the reader’s eyes.

The author plays his audience well. He begs readers’ sympathy for the outsider. He indulges himself for just long enough, then turns his tale around into curious depths. An ugly dog can draw out a teacher’s soul, and an ugly shore can welcome a promising tide. The music, lifestyle and people of an era are evocatively portrayed. That Iowa workshop, which all writers might have dreamed of, becomes a very real place. Student becomes teacher. Aspiring becomes published. Small romances, small failures, large hopes, and a wealth of characters, real and semi-real, combine in an ever-growing expanse of convincing university programs. It all leads inexorably to that grand finale where the artist takes off his disguise, revealing heart. In the meantime, readers meet poetry and poets, and maybe even learn a little about seeing outside the lines.

Disclosure: I received a free preview edition of this novel from the publisher and I offer my honest review.