Balloons Over Stockholm by James R. Scrimgeour ISBN: 0-9753388-0-3

James Scrimgeour’s Balloons Over Stockholm takes the reader on dual trips – across the globe and into the heart and soul of the artist. The poet’s visit to Sweden is born out of necessity: he and his wife go to say goodbye to a dying relative. In the midst of the pain, we find Scrimgeour at work and, in so doing, affirming life. As never before, Scrimgeour explores the world of creativity and imagination, as well as the vast range of emotions in the human spectrum. Read this new collection by the author of The Route, We Are What We Have Loved, and Monet in the Twentieth Century.

Now Available: Order your copy from Amazon.com today!

 

 

 

Scheduled Readings
 

21st April at 4pm: Western CT State University, 1st floor
Warner Hall. 

 


 
  Some of the poems appearing in this collection:
 
Iraqi Tank Graveyard

in the desert near Al-Jahrah, Kuwait,
in yet another Arthus-Bertrand photo
from above the remains of "Desert Storm"

appear as what’s left of a colony of
grotesque metallic insects that died
an ugly, painful death by poison gas —

see them — see where they lay after
their last throes — popped turrets
here, abandoned treads there — some

half buried in desert sand, some piled
on top of each other — no proper burial —
no respect for the dead.
 

 

There go the Fireworks

that your sister told us about, that she
has been seeing from her living room
once or twice a week — fireworks,
celebrating Stockholm’s birthday —
750 years ago . . .
                           and so we leave "The Earth
from Above" and find a place to sit on the steps
at the edge of the harbor — and look up —

not too bad a view of the little big bangs —
expansions and contractions — ephemeral
umbrellas of bright color — glowing embers
appearing and disappearing in the darkening sky . . .

now — look — the sky full of pink flecks,
like in the photograph — remember the pink
dots of flamingo on a black Lake Nakuru —

remember the pink specks that may,
the next day, spread their wings
in flight.


 
What People Are Saying:

 "From one of Connecticut's best loved poets comes this latest collection of poignant poems written while on a journey to Sweden and on an exploration into the human heart. These are some of Scrimgeour's most intimate and soul-searching writings. Born of a quiet optimism in the midst of situations where one might expect despair, these verses find renewal of spirit and a newfound joy as the poet experiences and shares the world with the people he cherishes."
          -  JJ Sargent, Fine Tooth Press

"There is a wonderfully paradoxical nature to Jim Scrimgeour's poetry in that the more accessible his work, the deeper the meaning.  The more personal his observations, the more universal his message.  In short, his is a voice that speaks to us all and begs to be heard and to inspire." 
          – Lou Orfanella,

 "This collection of James Scrimgeour's poems arises out of a confluence of personal grief and a profound sense of the world at large, both historical and ahistorical.  His poems connect the public and private in sudden moments of therapeutic shock, in which, if we're lucky, we may detect his perception of the void that individuals face alone, especially in death, a life so much in contrast with their dully perceived, packed sardine existence in everyday life.

"Scrimgeour is concerned to chart the relationship of individuals to the mass in order to allow the reader to recover the sensory experience of the one among the many – the sense that the imagination can give of the individual life lived.  In Scrimgeour's world, destroyed Iraqi tanks find kinship with the hordes of insects whose individual suffering and indignity of death are not acknowledged.  The collection, then, imagines the world anthropomorphically and restores a sensory feel for life – imaginations that recapture a lost sense of pleasure in the world." 
          – Ed Hagan

"Jim Scrimgeour is an amiable guide to wonders and pleasures of discovery and to the solace that place provides the self.  His Sweden poems are an affirmation of what sustain us; art and nature, and above all love in the face of loss.  His poems (like a walk through an Old Town) wind their way through history, art and inevitably out to a shore where each life alone faces the sea.  Scrimgeour's poems penetrate the veneer of daily life and exclaim that seeing, seeing clearly is a form of celebration." 
          – Peter Marcus

  

 

 

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