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Chad Sweeney
A Mirror to Shatter the Hammer

Chapbook. Poetry.
5.5" x 7.5", saddle-sewn, 32 pages
October, 2006

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A Mirror to Shatter the Hammer offers poems of remarkable presence and surprise. A cast of old world and postmodern narrators cohabit these spare fables, at once deranged, shrewd, naive, and mildly heroic. One woman filibusters her own wedding. An exasperated economist shouts to whomever is listening, “Our great middle class sways on a stool. I apologize. I apologize.” These lyrics slip through De Chirico landscapes, postures and frames of reference, playing hide and seek as “a film projected onto a running horse.” We find our own grandparents here, exhausted but alert, discussing turnips and wars before we were born. The known world, the solid world opens irreparably onto “cave flowers in bouquets of yellow steam” or “static from a sermon.” A carpenter plays a xylophone with two hammers. A Marxist makes use of a burning palace for his “sensible reading lamp.” Beyond its ironic tensions, A Mirror to Shatter the Hammer evokes an abiding tenderness and wonder. These are love poems—written by everyone to no one in particular.

In a two-dimensional house
the stairs are drawn of chalk.
A flat sun holds dominion
in the mirror, dear reader,

and the basement is a theory.

About Chad Sweeney

Chad Sweeney edits Parthenon West Review with David Holler and leads WritersCorps poetry workshops at Mission High School in San Francisco, with newly-arrived teenagers from Central America, Asia and the Middle East. He is the author of three previous chapbooks and has co-translated a book of Iranian poetry with Mojdeh Marashi, Arghavaan: Selected Poems of H.E. Sayeh (forthcoming from Wellspring Press, Tehran). His poems have appeared in New American Writing, Verse, Slope, Five Fingers Review, Pool, Black Warrior, Hunger Mountain, Runes, Poetry Flash, Tarpaulin Sky and elsewhere. He has an MFA from San Francisco State University and lives with his wife, poet Jennifer K. Sweeney, in San Francisco.

Reviews of A Mirror to Shatter the Hammer

"The 20 shrewd, sparse poems in A Mirror to Shatter the Hammer resonate with potential and presence, vibrate with the maddened shouts of a dozen remarkably dissimilar narrators, and entice the reader with the sagacity of an elderly carpenter and the bright-eyed callowness of a newborn. The fourth chapbook from San Franciscan Chad Sweeney grabs the proverbial hand and flings it on an exploration through cities and deserts, across the boundaries of space, and far from the realm of hackneyed conventionality."
--full review in Verse, written by Chris Vola

Excerpts from A Mirror to Shatter the Hammer:

"The Auction" and "Poem" at Slope; "New Mexico" at Tarpaulin Sky; "Diurne" at The Highest Number. Other poems may be found in New American Writing, 23; Verse, Fall 2006; Black Warrior Review, 32.1; Pool, 5; Transfer, 90; and Poetry Flash (Spring 2006).

Readings & events for Chad Sweeney and A Mirror to Shatter the Hammer

upcoming . . .

past . . .

February 3, 2007: San Diego, CA
Parthenon West Review & Poetry International Reading
Chad Sweeney & the editors and contributors of Parthenon West Review and Poetry International
6PM @ Claire de Lune
2906 University Avenue

February 2, 2007: San Diego, CA
Parthenon West Review & Poetry International Reading
Chad Sweeney & the editors and contributors of Parthenon West Review and Poetry International
7PM @ Scripps Cottage
San Diego State University (old campus)

January 19, 2007: Berkeley, CA
CALIFORNIA POETRY FLASH SERIES
Chad Sweeney & Roxane Beth Johnson
7:30 PM @ Black Oak Books
1491 Shattuck Avenue

November 7, 2006: San Francisco, CA
VELVET REVOLUTION/ READING SERIES
Book Release for Chad Sweeney's
A Mirror to Shatter the Hammer
5-6:30 @ Poetry Center, San Francisco State University
Room 512, Humanities Building

November 5, 2006: Livermore, CA
WINE AND WORDS/READING SERIES
Chad Sweeney & Lucille Lang Day
Book Release and Signing
2-4PM @ Martinelli Event Center
3585 Greenville Road

October 22, 2006: San Francisco, CA
WAVE BOOKS POETRY BUS READING
with Stephanie Young, Joshua Beckman, Matthew Zapruder, Christian Hawkey, Dean Young, DA Powell, Juliana Spahr, Gillian Conoley, Graham Foust, Anthony McCann, Kim Addonizio, Chad Sweeney, Jennifer K. Sweeney, Joe Wenderoth, Noelle Kocot, & others
12 pm @ The Make Out Room
3225 22nd Street

October 21, 2006: Santa Cruz, CA
WAVE BOOKS POETRY BUS READING
with Joshua Beckman, Matthew Zapruder, Chirstian Hawkey, DA Powell, Standard Schaeffer, Juliana Spahr, Stephanie Young, Gillian Conoley, Graham Foust, Anthony McCann, Joe Wenderoth, Chad Sweeney, Jennifer K. Sweeney, Noelle Kocot, Cole Heinowitz, & others
2pm & 7pm @ First Congregational Church Fellowship Hall
900 High Street

September 24th, 2006: San Francisco, CA
PAGAN POETRY READING SERIES
Chad Sweeney, Kirk Read, Hollie Hardy, Max Farber
8-10PM @ Club Waziema
543 Divisadero