Northeastern Illinois University English Instructor Larry O. Dean has written a new full-length book of poetry. “Activities of Daily Living” was published Feb. 8 in Ireland and the U.K. by Salmon Poetry and will become available in the United States on April 15.
The book’s title refers to routine occupations that people do every day without needing assistance. Dean examines those ordinary 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.
The book 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.
Dean is the author of two full-length collections and 10 chapbooks of poetry, including “Brief Nudity” (2013), “I Am Spam” (2004) and “Barking Up the Wrong Tree” (1989). In addition, Dean is a prolific singer-songwriter and in 2015 released his 13th solo album “Good Grief.”
