Background
BAKER, DAVID was born on September 27, 1954 in Oak Park, Illinois, United States.
( Changeable Thunder marks David Baker's emergence as a m...)
Changeable Thunder marks David Baker's emergence as a major contemporary poet. To his abiding sense of the Midwest—its politics, people, and landscapes—Baker adds a powerful historical dimension, with poems ranging from Puritan New England to the modern subway. Of particular note are poems on the works of other writers, as he reanimates Shelley's letters, Samuel Sewall's diaries, and Walt Whitman's novel. With brilliant technique, dazzling formal variety, and moving intimacy, Baker's poems explore personal illness, erotic and familial passion, artistic creation, and the constant work and changing weather of one man's life.
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( Regional in the best sense, Baker's poems capture the u...)
Regional in the best sense, Baker's poems capture the universal human commerce of love and conflict enduring under the water towers and behind the storefronts of America's heartland. Working in syllabics, sonnets, couplets, and free verse, Baker can write unflinchingly about love, illness, madness, and perseverance.
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( “This collection is moving, emotionally raw, yet subtle...)
“This collection is moving, emotionally raw, yet subtle and careful.”―Benjamin S. Grossberg, Antioch Review Part map, part travelogue, part chronicle, part autobiography, Never-Ending Birds explores a variety of landscapes from Midwestern villages to the boroughs of big cities. Steeped in story―divorce, loss, raising a child, uncovering old worlds and new loves―these poems are gracefully lived in, lived through, with mystery and beauty. from “Never-Ending Birds”: That’s us pointing to the clouds. Those are clouds of birds, now we see, one whole cloud of birds. There we are, pointing out the car windows. October. Gray-blue-white olio of birds. Never-ending birds, you called the first time― years we say it, the three of us, any two of us, one of those just endearments. Apt clarities. Kiss on the lips of hope.
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( “The language . . . feels almost ancient solely by the ...)
“The language . . . feels almost ancient solely by the skill with which Baker uses it.”―Los Angeles Review of Books In this masterful new work by “the most moving and expansive poet to come out of the American Midwest since James Wright” (Marilyn Hacker), David Baker constructs a layered natural history of his beloved Midwest and traces the complex story of human habitation from family and village life to the evolving nature of work and the mysterious habitats of the heart. At the center of Scavenger Loop is a sustained investigation of cycles and the natural recycling of things, and a discovery that even out of the discarded and the lost may come rebirth and renewal. In the process Baker reveals how everything bears the potential to be both invasive and life-giving: plants that beautify and conquer, chemicals that heal and destroy, words that mislead and instruct. Widely praised for his “impeccable formalism” (Booklist), Baker pushes to new stylistic methods, moving fluidly between unity and disorder, working at times in sustained narratives and intricate syllabics, at other times in fragments, cross-outs, and erasures. These poems praise and sing but are also clear-eyed in their documentation of destruction, the loss of human livelihood and natural habitat, the spreading threat of agri-business and unchecked development. From eco-poetics to the erotic, Scavenger Loop measures the dimensions of the pastoral and the elegy in contemporary lyric poetry.
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BAKER, DAVID was born on September 27, 1954 in Oak Park, Illinois, United States.
University of Illinois (Bachelor of Arts, 1976). Loyola University of Chicago (Juris Doctor, cum laude, 1979). Member, 1977-1979 and Associate Editor, 1978-1979, Loyola University of Chicago Law Journal.
Worked at McDermott, Will & Emery (Chicago, Illinois) specializing in General Practice (including Corporate, Employee Benefits, Estate Planning, Health, Litigation and Tax Law). Admitted to the bar, 1979, Illinois. Member, 1977-1979 and Associate Editor, 1978-1979, Loyola University of Chicago Law Journal.
Member: Chicago and Illinois State Bar Associations
Chicago Council of Lawyers. McDermott, Will & Emery is an international law firm founded in 1934.
Originally a Chicago tax law practice, the firm has established a full-service presence in seven domestic and three international offices with more than 600 attorneys. Clients include large corporations and individuals as well as small and medium-sized businesses.
The firm represents a wide range of industrial, financial and commercial enterprises, both publicly and privately held.
Firm attorneys represent clients in every state as well as numerous foreign jurisdictions.
( Regional in the best sense, Baker's poems capture the u...)
("This music of Place, with all its varied and subtle emot...)
( Changeable Thunder marks David Baker's emergence as a m...)
( “This collection is moving, emotionally raw, yet subtle...)
( “The language . . . feels almost ancient solely by the ...)
Member, 1977-1979 and Associate Editor, 1978-1979, Loyola University of Chicago Law Journal. Member: Chicago and Illinois State Bar Associations Chicago Council of Lawyers.