Enter Text

Enter Text

Music Appreciation

University Press of Florida, Cloth & Paper, 1994, 112 pp

Music Appreciation, written over the course of twenty years, is Floyd Skloot's first book of poems.

Finalist for the Oregon Book Award.

Quotes from reviews of the book:

"This is a rare book that begins strong, moves strongly, and ends in strength. . . . Many of its poems have the associative flow of great essays, moving from observed detail through several layers of considered thought to a precise climactic image.  In all, a fine, moving collection, worth waiting for." —Booklist

"I very much enjoyed Music Appreciation, its quietness, gentleness and – as one might hope from a colle ction with that title – genuine music.  These are intelligent poems that wear their learning lightly and carry their em otional equipment unhistrionically. . . . He is a splendidly modest sonneteer – no bombast, just a natural feel." —John Greening, The Hudson Review

"In Music Appreciation there are early poems, maturing to meet the usual growing demands.  Later poems deepen quickly, to deal with an unusual darkness.  Finally there is the record of a special ordeal, direct and without bitterness, dealing lightly with the intimate enemy.  A notable book." —Thomas Kinsella

"The work of a mature poet, Floyd Skloot commands not only individual pieces but orchestrates a larger composition as varied and as unified as any symphony." —Neal Bowers

"A fine collection, full of adroitly disposed formal variety, and modest about itself, its passion, its giving back." —Dabney Stuart

"Floyd Skloot has the gift essential to a true poet, the gift of perfect pitch." —Judith Hemschemeyer