“Activities of daily living” are routine occupations that people do every day without needing assistance. Larry O. Dean’s latest book examines those quotidian enterprises—reading and writing email, watching TV, going out to eat, working a job, parking the car, grocery shopping, online purchasing—while considering the juxtaposition between revelation and irreverence, employing an objective, but no less passionate appraisal of popular culture and its byproducts. It includes both traditional and experimental poems in fixed and open forms, such as Oulipian, persona, metrical, sestina, found, a satiric sequence based on the zodiac, and more.
“Funny and brilliant—and filled with good, hard-boiled advice (‘Do not punch loudmouth on cell phone in loud mouth’)—Larry O. Dean’s Activities of Daily Living is a tour of wonderful force, from the shattered Heinz crime scene (while ‘heads of lettuce sweat’) in ‘Übermarket’ to the valuable ‘Horoscopious’ notes that, for the Cancers among us, suggest, ‘When your soul needs a bandage, try to reach for something other than chocolate.’ So, I reach for this collection. I am ready for tomorrow (not to mention I’ve taken two one-a-days this afternoon).”
Chris Hickey Singer-songwriter
“A double-showcase winner of a book! With wit, insight and attention to detail Activities of Daily Living celebrates the quotidian with uncommon and brilliant poetry. It sings with heart and is aware of literary tradition; it is on your side and it lays down its bets with bravado.”
David McGimpsey Author of Sitcom and Li’l Bastard
“In the hands of Larry O. Dean, the marginal is central, the ephemeral is eternal, and the humdrum is surprising. A master of irony, he uses it in a fresh way: far from producing a distancing effect, this device contributes to the poet’s project of making the reader listen more closely, and see more clearly. Activities of Daily Living builds a strange, yet familiar world. You’ll enjoy living in it.”
Snežana Žabić Author of The Breath Capital
“They say comedies and comedians never win Academy Awards. My best guess why: ‘No respect!’ as Rodney Dangerfield so eloquently stated. A phrase, with all its evolving nuances and contexts, that will last an eternity. Comedy is the last great untouchable art of expression; it exists under the radar, using metaphor, irony, nuance, and context are the art’s cornerstone. The best comedians can say anything while at the same time disarming their audience. Larry O. Dean’s poems in Activities of Daily Living disarm his readers with a laugh, and open them for the truth about what we deal with everyday, and what we become everyday. Remember in college the joke about not looking in the mirror on LSD? Dean’s poetry sneaks you into the same place, a conversation with yourself: ‘Pleased to meet me.’ It’s terrifying as a duck kept on a leash riding a bus—forced into the alien world of public transport and humanity. If only we could be left by the world to be where we’re supposed to be, to be who we’re supposed to be, like ducks on a pond.”
Chet Weise Editor, Third Man Books
