Recommended physical bookshop:
Galerie Boekie Woekie, Geldersekade 39, 1011 EJ Amsterdam
tel: 0031-20-6390507
mail@boekiewoekie.com
Reviews
Review of New and selected poems, 1966 - 2020: Beauty is truth but ugliness means well (some personal thoughts about Donald Gardner’s poetry). Just to get this out of the way: this is not a review of Mr. Gardner’s work in the broader sense. My English simply isn’t good enough to confidently convey what I think about his poetics, and my understanding of his place in the international literary landscape is woefully inadequate to do him, or it, any justice.
Benne van der Velde
Review of New and selected poems, 1966 - 2020: Fred Johnston admires Donald Gardner’s well-crafted poetic chronicling of his times. It is no insignificant thing to discover a poet whose work in turn delivers something back to you. Call it a polite shock of newness, even surprise. When I first came upon Donald Gardner’s work my wonder was that I hadn’t read him or, indeed, of him, much more and more often.
Fred Johnston
Review of New and selected poems, 1966 - 2020: LIKE PESSOA (WHOM he evidences in a poem) and his heteronyms, or – closer – John Berryman with Henry, Donald Gardner works through an alter ego. But without pretending. Gradually, the reader can identify that other ‘I’. Disenchanted (but never cynical); mordant; long-suffering; uncomplaining; an outsider.
Desmond Egan - Fortnightly Review
Review of Early Morning. London Grip Poetry Review – Donald Gardner. Richie McCaffery finds the new pamphlet by Donald Gardner to have something of the weight of a full collection. Early Morning is the first collection of Donald Gardner’s own poetry (as distinct from his masterly translations from the Dutch of the likes of Remco Campert) since The Wolf Inside appeared in 2014.
Michael Bartholomew-Biggs
"Donald Gardner is one of the most exciting and surprising poets around. His work will turn your head (and mind) upside down - whether it's commenting on the after-affects of jet lag after one of his numerous trips to New York City or warning you jovially about the coming of the millennium. Buy this book and catch him around in one of his wild, wicked, wonderful performances."
Bruce Weber, poet and poetry producer
author of "How the Poem Died"
"Donald Gardner is an aristocratic madman, observing a princely life with tongue firmly cheeked. His poems have that slightly wicked turn that evoke school lessons and a proper upbringing while rolling in the absurdity of life's mayhem and rainshine. With a gleam in his twinkle his chickens fall in and out of rhyme - poultry as poetry - miming a legend while bestowing his feet with a poet's ode. Donald's writing and performance cover a unique and surreal vision of the world. He speaks of a life long-lived, a perpetual child in wonder at his own constant escapes from his brain. The sort of clever little naughty boy who questions everything and waits for an answer, bringing us into his madness."
Edwin Torres, poet and performer
"In the style of the bardic punsters.... nah. In the manner of the lamentable vaudevillians? Uhuh. Perhaps -- with the gelatin skeleton of in-no-sense/capturing the pratfalls of intelligence! OOoooo. Stop stop stop. There's simply no describing Prof. Chicken Poet, Donald Gardner, as he single-handedly combats every image of la poesie by sheer pluck, dither, performative ether. This guy's the only ever-singing unsung genius I ever heard. And now it's a book too! Gimme two!"
Bob Holman, poet and poetry activist
