Review by Mack Hassler I had said in an earlier review of one of the many collections by Splake as well as in Clutch collections by Zoschke, which contain a lot of Splake, that I thought he was winding down his enormous output of short poems. In fact, I used…
Review by Mack Hassler I am a great believer in serendipity and feel lucky that during the past year, my name has gotten linked to the work of Zoschke as well as to Zoschke on Splake (see several reviews of mine over recent months) because now I am given a…
Review by Mack Hassler I think there is no argument that our writers who set themselves up as our poets are the real forerunners in language development. Storytellers entertain us, historians order and give us useful general ideas, comic tone writers defend us against the many predators that lurk in…
Review by Mack Hassler This is my third review in six months of the work of this trickster with the Vonnegut-stolen name (t. kilgore splake) in the context of the “new literature” of the UP, and I think finally I begin to see clearly the profound loneliness of his chosen…
By Sharon Brunner Kilgore Splake elicits strong imagery about various life situations. “Camp Baraga Ghosts” contains photographs of the old prison that was located in Baraga, Michigan, long closed. The imagination is sparked by the renditions of things past. Splake provides this quote in his introduction: “The old long-abandoned and…
Review by Sharon Brunner Dredge Artistic Decay, written by T. Kilgore Splake, offered the reader renditions of past losses. After the “Copper Boom” in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (U.P.), businesses crumbled and along came the appearance of industrial relics. During the boom miners dredged millions of pounds of copper…
Sons and Fathers in a New Place Review by Mack Hassler “ … in words begin responsibilities.” Louis Ginsberg to his son Allen Ginsberg in Dharma Lion (St Martin’s Press, 1992), 309. It is exciting to discover the Beat Generation in UP literature far from the Bay Area of the…
Trout Fishing in our Own Lake Review by Mack Hassler Like many serious writers, this poet tinkers with his name for literary purposes. He invents an identity that links his work to the clever science fiction writer Kurt Vonnegut (Kilgore Trout) as well as to the Kerouac-type Beat writer Richard…
Life beyond shadows, poems by t. kilgore splake (Shoe Music Press, 2021); In Other Days, Roger Craik (BlazeVox Books, 2022) Haiku and Winnie-the-Pooh Review by Mack Hassler My friend and colleague, Roger Craik, has a very nice poem on A.A. Milne in the new collection of his poems In Other…
Review by Sharon Brunner The poems in this book, Roads Not Traveled: Collection of Poems, were inspired by Robert Frost. Travelers are strongly affected by the decisions they make, for better or worse. T. Kilgore Splake felt forced to take a path less wanted instead of a naval career. Teaching…
Review by Sharon Brunner The journey of a prominent Upper Peninsula poet, T. Kilgore Splake, was as significant as the destination, as Robert M. Zoschke details in his new biography The Road to Splake. Thomas Smith, Splake’s given name, grew up in Three Rivers, Michigan with two older sisters. His…
Depot Rediscovers a Forgotten Landmark of Keweenaw’s Heritage Review by Victor R. Volkman One of the fondest memories I have of my father was our train watching visits to the huge and desolate industrial railyards of Detroit. A few times, in the late 1960s, we made special trips to see…
