Words of Kindness for My Work

From the coldness of the Nebraska winter to the heat of a lover's bed, Dan Nowak takes the reader on a compelling lyric journey. He shares intimate moments with his audience, crafting his words so that we feel the scratchiness of the seldom worn suit, the skinned knuckles from the loading bays, and the sweat of a lover's skin. There are poems here to savor and reread and then reread again."

P. Andrew Miller, author of The Legend of The Turquoise Knight, Coordinator of Creative Writing, Northern Kentucky University.

Dan Nowak’s poems in Of a Bed Frame tattoo themselves upon the reader’s mind. Each word pierces the thin veneer of social constructs to expose Nowak’s vision of the world, a world where strange dichotomies unite, where steak and family symbolize consumption and alienation, and where the poet can create and celebrate the families and loves many refuse or are afraid to even acknowledge. With each word like a tatt gun prick, he punctures the divide between mind and body, between you and me, between love and hate, between beauty and squalor; he reminds us, “There is something left behind in all of us.”

Ryder Collins, author of Orpheus on toast