A man is stung by a wasp who claims to be his dead father. Another pictures gangsters in his blood during a cardiology exam. The angel Gabriel plays practical jokes at God’s dinner table. And an absent-minded homebody ponders microplastics in the ocean. In his debut chapbook, For the Dead Dreams of Others, Dan Schall explores these and other moments of tension and strangeness.
The poems in this collection confront questions of spirituality, our changing climate, a disintegrating biosphere, and the risks we take in baring ourselves to those we love. Spanning fantasy and prayer, memory and incantation, For the Dead Dreams of Others juxtaposes geopolitical conflicts and identity-scraping technology with interpersonal struggles of family and faith, interrogating how we reconcile self-perceptions with the moral and ethical struggles that surround us. Set against a backdrop of extreme global consumption, Schall’s fourteen poems evoke a contemporary desperation for understanding in our increasingly fractured world.
Dan Schall’s debut chapbook, For the Dead Dreams of Others, is available now at Bottecap Press.
Daniel Schall 