"Red Boots" by Michael Koehler

Red Boots ISBN: 978-0-9823419-5-7

" So what's up at Little Eagle Press?", you ask - or maybe you don't - but I'll tell you anyway:

We here at Little Eagle Press – no, truthfully – I here at Little Eagle Press, am wildly proud to announce publication of the first book to receive the press’ R. M. Arvinson Manuscript of the Year Award. The book is Michael Koehler’s RED BOOTS, a collection from one of Wisconsin’s finest, which leads the reader through a good bit of Koehler’s life - his longings, his triumphs, his blues. Women. Brothers. The road. The loss of a father and the finding of a poet.

Michael Koehler seems to find the poem wherever he looks, but takes it home and polishes it beautifully before putting it on display. Somehow, he does this without losing a feeling of immediacy, a sense of conversation. Here's the first poem in the book:

MEDICINE FOR A FRIEND

Let me give you this:

Tall prairie grass humming like old women

gathered to quilt their long memories into

a tan and green and dark brown field

where, underneath, small things can be warm as the sun on sumac.

Take this, too:The sky a peerless blue,

high clouds rippled like the flesh of walleye.

And here, in my heart,

my love, one leaf that never falls,

waving like an anthem,

keeping the bare tree rooted to the earth.

There are poems here that will stay with you; poems that I believe will become a part of you. The book contains a rather handsome 82 pages, including 17 of my own pen & ink drawings inspired by this manuscript.

You may order RED BOOTS, by Michael Koehler, for $12. plus $3. s&h from:

Little Eagle Press

P.O. Box 684

Baileys Harbor, WI, USA 54202

littleeaglepress@gmail.com

checks cheerfully accepted, until I get stung.

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And if you're not already following Mike's blog (http://onehandarmands.blogspot.com/) , wake up!

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Back to Little Eagle's nest, click http://littleeaglepress.blogspot.com/

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A first impression of Red Boots, this from t.k. splake, the Bard of the Keweenaw: http://poetrydispatch.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/t-kilgore-splake-life-death-poet-trees/

. . . read and enjoyed the . . . little eagle press . . . title RED BOOTS, and of course the ‘title poem’ was a literary given, helluva fine verse, but, for tommy (the splake-smith) I liked as well the koehler poem “road trip,” which may say something about my bardic personality, red trippin’ ohhhhhhhhhh and yes, and, goddammit, and, goddammit, the murre artwork was a plus, just as fine, nay excellent as the michael writings, more more more in the future, I AM HOPING, noticed that you are a pilot pen man, precise v-5, well, I buy my pilot razor sharp ii pens by the dozen, eh, I have this thing about pilot ii’s . . . again kudos and congrats on RED BOOTS – poetry and drawings . . .

best

cheers

t.