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Feasting at the Table of the Damned
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Poetry (2011)Poetry. With dark humor, spare language and a keen eye, Daniel Ames invites us all to pull up a chair to his first collection of poems. In Feasting at the Table of the Damned, Ames celebrates, observes and reflects not only on how we choose to live, but how we ultimately live with those choices. Ames's book is an exploration. It's an examination of the ramifications of living life to the utmost degree. How do we reconcile the emotional extremes between love and death, joy and sorrow, hope and regret, trust and betrayal? There are no answers, but the poems in Feasting provide a few clues. Loaded with themes ranging from war and the pursuit of happiness, to dreams and the fine line between sanity and insanity, Feasting is a moving collection of poems that resonate long after they've been read...and savored.
- GenresPoetry
96 pages, Paperback
First published April 29, 2011
140 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 5, 2013
The best volume of poetry I've read since I encountered Ilya Kaminsky's Dancing in Odessa. This is likely to be my favorite book of the year.
June 3, 2011
My first encounter with poetry, besides the usual copied poems we were all forced to write on cards for Mother's Day and Valentine's Day in kindergarten and early elementary school, was in my 5th grade class at Condon Elementary in St. Helens, Oregon. Oh, how I wish I remember this teacher's name. I remember what he looked like. He stood about 5'6" and had thick graying hair with a full beard and mustache. His eyes were a light blue. He had a limp with partial paralysis on his right side from having polio as a child. He was kind. He was funny. And sometimes, when he didn't think we were watching, he'd pick his nose hairs with tweezers. He really was my favorite teacher. Probably because he treated all of us the same; as if we were all capable of achieving greatness. He treated us that way even when we failed at something.
For me it was poetry.
He spent several days teaching us the ins and outs of poetry. He talked to us about rhythm and rhyming... and about a hundred other things, I'm sure. It was a long time ago, and I'm afraid in all of the years I've spent filling my brain with goodness this was, sadly, the only time I ever remember being taught anything about poetry. Well, he taught us and sent us off to write a poem, and then had us take turns reading our poems to the class.
Oh, boy!
I don't have the poem I wrote memorized in its entirety, but I do remember the first two lines...
*dramatic pause*
I'm about to enter embarrassment territory, but it's all for the greater good... I promise.
There was a little deer
Standing next to a can of beer...
Hey, no laughing. I was in 5th grade for crying out loud.
The poem did improve along the way, and according to my teacher, my rhyming and rhythm were perfect. But we both knew that poetry wasn't my thing and that I wouldn't be earning a living writing greeting cards for Hallmark.
Since then I've always been fascinated with poetry. I just find it hard to understand. I think I've been conditioned in life to believe that every single thing, every single day, is a test. When in some ways it probably is, in other ways... like reading poetry, it isn't.
I had to remember that while reading Feasting at the Table of the Damned by Daniel Ames. His poetry wasn't a test for me. It was a chance for me to take a look inside myself and find a relationship with the imagery he put together with words. At times the book is filled with humor. At other times it is dark in its truthfulness. I could read about places that I've never been to and envision them in full detail with every word written in a poem. I found myself connecting and remembering some of the pain I have felt in my own life. Every word rang true to me. It was a beautiful tale about life. The good and the bad. Both, woven together as a reminder of how our choices, and unintended life circumstances, change us.
For me it was poetry.
He spent several days teaching us the ins and outs of poetry. He talked to us about rhythm and rhyming... and about a hundred other things, I'm sure. It was a long time ago, and I'm afraid in all of the years I've spent filling my brain with goodness this was, sadly, the only time I ever remember being taught anything about poetry. Well, he taught us and sent us off to write a poem, and then had us take turns reading our poems to the class.
Oh, boy!
I don't have the poem I wrote memorized in its entirety, but I do remember the first two lines...
*dramatic pause*
I'm about to enter embarrassment territory, but it's all for the greater good... I promise.
There was a little deer
Standing next to a can of beer...
Hey, no laughing. I was in 5th grade for crying out loud.
The poem did improve along the way, and according to my teacher, my rhyming and rhythm were perfect. But we both knew that poetry wasn't my thing and that I wouldn't be earning a living writing greeting cards for Hallmark.
Since then I've always been fascinated with poetry. I just find it hard to understand. I think I've been conditioned in life to believe that every single thing, every single day, is a test. When in some ways it probably is, in other ways... like reading poetry, it isn't.
I had to remember that while reading Feasting at the Table of the Damned by Daniel Ames. His poetry wasn't a test for me. It was a chance for me to take a look inside myself and find a relationship with the imagery he put together with words. At times the book is filled with humor. At other times it is dark in its truthfulness. I could read about places that I've never been to and envision them in full detail with every word written in a poem. I found myself connecting and remembering some of the pain I have felt in my own life. Every word rang true to me. It was a beautiful tale about life. The good and the bad. Both, woven together as a reminder of how our choices, and unintended life circumstances, change us.
September 14, 2011
It takes time to read and then re-read a collection of poems, to enjoy each word, to think about the imagery. It’s a pleasure not to be hurried but to be savored, to be put down and then revisited. You need to bring yourself to the table; your own life experiences which will help you to find a meaning that is your own.
Feasting at the Table of the Damned is indeed a particularly fine collection where the questions raised have to be allowed to mature in your mind, to sink in until their very being inhabit your soul. These poems deserve to be dipped into time and time again until the depths of emotion and imagery diffuse and settle in your mind.
There are a variety of themes that Ames visits; beauty, innocence, loss, indifference, hatred, love and time, which are all used to question our own lives; past, present and future.
In ‘Perplexing When’ Ames ponders on the passing of time and wonders when people stop caring and realize that they have changed from the idealistic person they used to be.
He asks was it:
When the garden lay fallow
And the first of the weeds arrived.
Do people notice those first weeds arriving? Are we all cursed with the 21st century illness of being constantly busy where we allow time to pass with alarming haste and then suddenly, one day, notice all of the things we meant to do with our lives but just never got round to, littered around our feet like weeds? Ames challenges us to wonder how and why this happens.
It’s a common fact that life wears people down, whether we fight against this or not. Decisions are made that lead us down particular tracks sometimes without us even realizing a choice has been made. In several of his poems Ames is searching for this illusive moment when in a split second our fate can be changed forever.
In ‘Where the Train Runs Out of Track’ two people, possibly a husband and wife, are worn down by life and can eventually only see its imperfections. They can’t see the future clearly anymore and wonder whether they should indeed continue on together or go their separate ways. But just as above the grey cloud and rain that inhabits many of our days the sky is blue and the sun is shining, Ames reminds us that there could always be a glimmer of hope that if seen from a different angle, as in the view from above that a hawk has, life can in an instant change for the better or if the chance is missed we walk,
Toward the precipice ahead
Could there always be hope out there that somehow can be seen and grasped? How many times has an opportunity passed us by unnoticed?
Go read these poems for yourself. Think about them and then read them again. Don’t search for what the poet meant by the words but look into your own soul and find some meaning for yourself.
Feasting at the Table of the Damned is indeed a particularly fine collection where the questions raised have to be allowed to mature in your mind, to sink in until their very being inhabit your soul. These poems deserve to be dipped into time and time again until the depths of emotion and imagery diffuse and settle in your mind.
There are a variety of themes that Ames visits; beauty, innocence, loss, indifference, hatred, love and time, which are all used to question our own lives; past, present and future.
In ‘Perplexing When’ Ames ponders on the passing of time and wonders when people stop caring and realize that they have changed from the idealistic person they used to be.
He asks was it:
When the garden lay fallow
And the first of the weeds arrived.
Do people notice those first weeds arriving? Are we all cursed with the 21st century illness of being constantly busy where we allow time to pass with alarming haste and then suddenly, one day, notice all of the things we meant to do with our lives but just never got round to, littered around our feet like weeds? Ames challenges us to wonder how and why this happens.
It’s a common fact that life wears people down, whether we fight against this or not. Decisions are made that lead us down particular tracks sometimes without us even realizing a choice has been made. In several of his poems Ames is searching for this illusive moment when in a split second our fate can be changed forever.
In ‘Where the Train Runs Out of Track’ two people, possibly a husband and wife, are worn down by life and can eventually only see its imperfections. They can’t see the future clearly anymore and wonder whether they should indeed continue on together or go their separate ways. But just as above the grey cloud and rain that inhabits many of our days the sky is blue and the sun is shining, Ames reminds us that there could always be a glimmer of hope that if seen from a different angle, as in the view from above that a hawk has, life can in an instant change for the better or if the chance is missed we walk,
Toward the precipice ahead
Could there always be hope out there that somehow can be seen and grasped? How many times has an opportunity passed us by unnoticed?
Go read these poems for yourself. Think about them and then read them again. Don’t search for what the poet meant by the words but look into your own soul and find some meaning for yourself.
July 12, 2011
Excellent! (And I'm not a big fan of poetry.)
Dan Ames has a sexy and twisted mind. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Dan Ames has a sexy and twisted mind. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews