Clint Frakes’ Myths, Beasts & the Ways of Water is a book about seeking: sacred landscapes, love, myths to live with and by, elegies to poets. Somewhere at the intersection of all these journeys is baseball, which appears where sacred meets profane. The poet dreams that Willie Mays has come back to the plate; he sees a “patriotic” Atlanta Braves fan with styrofoam tomahawk held to his chest. There are lovely moments of perception throughout, many offered to the reader in haiku form. Like “Thanksgiving in Manoa”: “An old Chinese widower / carries his plate lunch along the sidewalk, / stepping on fallen plumeria blossoms.” In his “Lost Episodes” from the Flintstones, scattered like pebbles throughout the book, we find the poet quoting Hindu scripture to the iconic cartoon, before Betty and her crowd return to the “bardo inkwell and source-pond of all image.” Look around you, he says, it’s all sacred.
About the Author
Clint Frakes was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1964 and has lived in Arizona since 1992. He is a graduate of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute, the Northern Arizona University writing program, and the University of Hawaii. He started publishing poetry, essays, and multi-genre non-fiction in 1987 and has been published widely in literary journals in North America, England, Australia, and Argentina. He has worked as a journalist, literature and creative writing professor, and wilderness guide. In 2008, he was selected by America’s 4th Poet Laureate and Pulitzer-winner, Mark Strand, as one of the Best New Poets. Myths, Beasts & the Ways of Water is Clint Frakes’ first full collection of poems, which includes several modalities of his work between 1986 and 2025. He lives in Northern Arizona with his sons, Quanah and Dawson.
Clint Frakes’ Myths, Beasts & the Ways of Water is a book about seeking: sacred landscapes, love, myths to live with and by, elegies to poets. Somewhere at the intersection of all these journeys is baseball, which appears where sacred meets profane. The poet dreams that Willie Mays has come back to the plate; he sees a “patriotic” Atlanta Braves fan with styrofoam tomahawk held to his chest. There are lovely moments of perception throughout, many offered to the reader in haiku form. Like “Thanksgiving in Manoa”: “An old Chinese widower / carries his plate lunch along the sidewalk, / stepping on fallen plumeria blossoms.” In his “Lost Episodes” from the Flintstones, scattered like pebbles throughout the book, we find the poet quoting Hindu scripture to the iconic cartoon, before Betty and her crowd return to the “bardo inkwell and source-pond of all image.” Look around you, he says, it’s all sacred.
About the Author
Clint Frakes was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1964 and has lived in Arizona since 1992. He is a graduate of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute, the Northern Arizona University writing program, and the University of Hawaii. He started publishing poetry, essays, and multi-genre non-fiction in 1987 and has been published widely in literary journals in North America, England, Australia, and Argentina. He has worked as a journalist, literature and creative writing professor, and wilderness guide. In 2008, he was selected by America’s 4th Poet Laureate and Pulitzer-winner, Mark Strand, as one of the Best New Poets. Myths, Beasts & the Ways of Water is Clint Frakes’ first full collection of poems, which includes several modalities of his work between 1986 and 2025. He lives in Northern Arizona with his sons, Quanah and Dawson.
