"The Cadaverous Journey" (New book by D.L. Siluk)

“The Cadaverous Journey” is an eldritch journey into the spheres of dying souls, — a forty-page chronicle, a profoundly influencing story, showing a psychosomatic revolution within the strange, ghostly, unearthly world, with a spell binding ending. In addition, here, is a hefty, brilliant collection of poetry by the legendary poet of the Andes of Peru, international poet from St. Paul, Minnesota, Dennis L. Siluk. Here you find several books in one, and the poems are in English and Spanish; also, translated into several other languages, on over four-hundred internet sites, with over two-million readers a year. The author represents three cultures here: North American, Peruvian, and German: incorporating grieving poetry, legends, to include “The Muhammad Papers”; “The Poetry of the Miners” (of: Cerro de Pasco, Peru); his old “Neighborhood Poetry” from the 50s and 60s (from Minnesota); “Stars over Germany;” “Anvil,” and “Orion’s Orchard”; confessional poetry, cosmic poetry of a theological nature—also poetry on “Death” –and two complimentary poems. Included is “The Nightmare Demon,” an article on sleep. This book is five years in the making. Integrated in the book are photos of the author with: Poet and Radio Story Teller, Garrison Keillor and Diplomat Dr. Miguel A. Rodriguez Mackay.


Dennis L. Siluk, Ed.D. is the author of 37-books, several in English and Spanish, eleven in Poetry. This is his seventh book on myths, with supernatural beings. He lives with his wife Rosa, in Minnesota and Peru, and is working on three more books. Front sketch by Clark A. Smith.

Book to be out, so you can order it, in August, 2008

Putting Structure in Poetry

Someone once said, “You don’t need substance from or of a poem,” I disagreed with that, silently, and then wrote about it later. We all have our opinions in literature and poetry not sure who is right and who is wrong, or if there is such things as right an wrong in writing, except for things you didn’t intend to do, and you did.
Substance can mean matter, body, the essence or soul of the poem, and I suppose some poems do not have a soul, there is another element in substance though, I’ve yet to bring out, it is called ‘Structure’ or at least I call it that, or proclaim it to be part of substance, again, folks may differ with that.
Let me put it another way, I have a body, and that means I have structure, and in my body I have a soul. I am a living poem you could say. But let me go a little farther with this.
When a thing is composed of parts, it has what you call structure, meaning I have arms, legs, a head, torso, feet, hands, these to me are parts. When you put all this together you get me. On the other hand, a poem has parts, such as: words, sounds, tone, and they all fit together, or should if you want structure to your poem that is; another word for parts can be elements.
A part of the poem, or structure, is its form. Some call them lines, other folks may call them stanzas, as in a haiku, there is a shape or pattern developing here that will become part of the structure. In most haiku’s there are seventeen syllables, I say in most, and three lines, but it varies by style, one can add a line or two if you change the style. The first and third lines have five syllables, and in the middle line are seven.
To some poets, and I am among them, they are unwillingness to submit themselves to rigid forms, although I have. My first book, “The Other Door,” would fall under this style, the rigid form style, and many of my other poems, are of this style, out of my 2400-poems to this day, but most have not. Why?
Well let me say it with a correlation: why write something and try to squeeze it into a haiku that cannot come out of a haiku, into such a rigid form that is, thus I change styles. What is important to me is the soul more often, how I think I want the reader to perceive the poem, and the effect.
But one must not forget, form gives the poem unity, completeness often times. That is to say, your eyes are no good if you can’t see to read, so you get glasses, and thus, you are more complete. If you stick with a Haiku, which is liking to having no glasses when you need them, you do more harm than good—and perhaps make both you and the poem more cumbersome and silly.
On the other, a good sonnet, and I’ve written a number of them, not a lot, but several, and the concluding line, the last line, the one with a rhyme word, to end it all, should be the spark for the whole poem: for the best effect: we see this in Shelley’s work “Ozymandias (1817), so what did Shelly really do to make the poem so good. To me she picked out one thing, idea, perception, and picture, framed it, echoed it at the end, one thing one human experience the reader could hang onto, and she used the form of the poem to do this. Like a counselor would do in group therapy, such as turning off the lights, tell a story in a low tone, and when there was a great silence, he created from the beginning to the end, at the end, the last word would be the word he would want everyone to connect the story with later with. I done this in poetry as well as counseling being a license counselor, putting this form into poetry is not difficult for me, and Shelly does it wisely. Her last words in the poem being, “The lone and level sand stretch far away.”

Questions on Poetry (From the Smart Guys!)

On a radio program last year I was asked several questions, and at a presentation I was asked several, a few the same. It seems to me lots of people are asking questions about poetry nowadays, and one of the questions was:
“Why to I write more poetry than anything else?”
Well that question seemed to be kind of repugnant to me, so I asked “Why not?” And he said, “It doesn’t sell, and there isn’t that big of an audience out there!” There I sat with my wife, and the radio commentator, and thought, and I’m sure he thought he had me stumped, I saw that smirk on his face. And then I said,
“Why do you have me on your program then, and why did you tell me, several universities are listening, and did you realize in the past several years more and more books of poetry are being sold every day, poetry has had it comeback, and it is not over.”
Well as I said that was one question. Then at a presentation, I was asked another question, and it seems people are not asking questions to learn rather to see if they can burn, you—in this case me. To show how smart they are. Anyhow, the question was asked again,
“Why poetry? I mean, what is so special about it, it’s not a big seller, and folks don’t read it, and most people write it as it pertains to them.”
Such questions, can’t anyone come up with something more provoking, original, so I thought at the time: I said,
“First if you can write poetry well, you can write anything well, it is the highest form of writing, or is suppose to be. Second I repeated what I had said the first time, go check the bookstores, they got large sections of poetry. There is art and skill in poetry. And third or forth, poetry is a little story the author is telling you, and yes, they have to condense it, and most often go according to a style, and it can be often times only read by someone who has experience what you have, but then so is prose in a way, it is just that prose is smoother to read. And if you use a lot of adjectives, you might be getting into poetic prose and you don’t even know it.”
Rhyming poetry didn’t come into existence until the 10th Century, where many folks think there has to be a rime or a reason you don’t use a rhyme schema in your stanzas.

Anyhow, I just wanted to share a few ‘questions’ I received from the smart guys, you all know them, there are few reading this right now saying, “Whose he think he is!” (This is not a question, rather a statement). But you good folks, go buy your poetry books, read your best poets, write some, and put the smart guys where they belong, left alone in the back row where they will be asking dumb questions for the rest of their lives—to get attention and so the world how smart they are.

Tenative Itinerary of Events for 2008 for Dennis L. Siluk

Tentative Itinerary of Events for 2008 for Dennis L. Siluk

(June thru September)

June, Mr. Siluk is expected to be visiting other countries (South America and Europe), and will not be in Peru or the United States, where he has homes in each country for that month. And perhaps will appear for his third time on RPP-Lima Radio (Programs Peru).

July, 2008 Lecture by Dr. Dennis L. Siluk on Poetry, expected to be held at the Huancayo, Peru Cultural Center

July or August, Mr. Dennis Siluk is expected to visit Satipo, and head into the jungle in search of an old archeological site, details held for now…and discus with the mayor and cultural authorities, on a future book concerning Satipo Jungle

August or September, 2008, the Author Dennis L. Siluk is expectant to have a presentation of his new book: “The Cadaverous Journey,” to be held at the Huancayo, Peru Cultural Center, or Conventional University.

September, 2008, Poeta Laureado Dennis L. Siluk, is expected to be present for the week long festivities at Stone Forest, Cerro de Pasco, Peru; he will be there for three days.

Other events will include several appearances on radio programs, some TV appearances, and attending some events in and around the Mantaro Valley area of the Andes of Peru.


Rosa Penaloza de Siluk