Aspens in the Wind (72 pp.),  Snider's first book of poems since the highly-praised  The Alchemy of Opposites,  can be ordered from Chiron Review Press for $12.00 ($3.00 for shipping and handling).  You can contact the press via e-mail or write directly to it:

Chiron Review Press
Michael Hathaway, Editor/Publisher
522 E. South Avenue
St. John, KS 67576-2212
editor@chironreview.com.
Chiron Review Press accepts cash, check, or money orders or payments via Paypal at poetry_man61@earthlink.net.

You can also order the book through its author at csnider@csulb.edu.

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James Benedict writes about Aspens in the Wind, in Rattle: Poetry for the 21st Century: "Harnessing unconscious energy for poetic inspiration is . . . Snider’s imperative . . . adding a focus on the indispensible male muse, Snider’s younger lover. . . .  Snider’s poems carry on the shamanic tradition in a postmodern Western context, offering us directions by pointing to central values in our culture: family, relationship, friendship, loving-kindness, nurture, respect for sexual and cultural alterity, and a view to the continuity of the human predicament, particularly via artistic expression. In Clifton Snider’s recent poems, each of these constitute a temenos, a magic circle where we may find respite and alchemical individuation in stressful times."

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Reviewing Aspens in the Wind in Chiron Review (#90, Spring 2010), Arnold T. Schwab writes: "The poems [in Aspens in the Wind] feature detailed descriptions of out-of-the-way peoples, persons, places, structures, animals and incidents encountered on his travels, which testify to his keen curiosity and observation. . . . This book can be read with pleasure . . . by anyone who appreciates exact observation, humanistic values and liberal politics.  Unlike those of many contemporary poets, Snider's poems are direct and accessible and should appeal to all lovers of poetry -- and to all lovers."

I am pleased to announce that the anthology in which "St. Anthony's Church" appears has won the 2009 National Best Book Award for Fiction & Literature: Anthologies, sponsored by USA Book News.  This poem is in Aspens in the Wind.  For a link to the poem and to more information about the anthology, see below.

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Comments about Clifton Snider's other books of poetry:

Jesse Comes Back (1976):
Clifton Snider's book of poems, Jesse Comes Back, impressed me very much. It is very seldom that I . . . can recommend ["a book by a young poet"] as highly as this one.
--Christopher Isherwood

Snider is one of our very few young poets to make a happy marriage of scholarship and imagination.
--Gerald Locklin, Small Press Review

Bad Smoke  Good Body (1980):
Bad Smoke  Good Body is a beautiful and powerful little book.
--William Meredith, former Poetry Consultant to The Library of Congress

In Bad Smoke  Good Body . . . Snider turns to powerfully evoked, emotional images. . . .
--Leo Mailman, Maelstrom Review

Jesse and His Son (1982):
. . . just the right amount of pustule, dope and transcendentalism fused.
--Robert Peters, author of Hunting the Snark

Edwin: A Character in Poems (1984):
Clifton Snider has chosen to depict his character, Edwin, with a clean story-like style of imagist opinions rather than narrative involvements. His work becomes insightful and evocative when the images get bawdy and he allows his superb sense of humor to come into play.
--Jenifer Tener, Electrum

Blood & Bones (1988):
This volume . . . completes, with the dropping of the "Jesse" and "Edwin" personae, [Snider's] transition from modern to postmodern artist. The confidence he now exhibits renders accessible to artistic use a rich though often painful personal history.
--Gerald Locklin, Western American Literature

This book does not paint a pretty picture, and the squeamish should steer clear. But Mr. Snider is a definite talent, a unique voice, and an original thinker.
--Eva Von Kesselhausen, Blue Light Review

Southern California poet Clifton Snider explores the unexpected, the near tragic, and the adventurous.  In three sections, he writes of a trip through Europe in the '70s, of his sudden hospitalization with a bleeding ulcer, and of his return to travel in Europe in the mid '80s.  Poems of the first trip are soaked with the blood oozing into his guts; poems of the second trip reflect good health, a good eye, and maturity.  The contrast is appealing; the poems, beguiling.
--Richard Labonte, The Advocate

Impervious to Piranhas (1989):
Snider writes with an extreme economy of words, and focuses most of his book on one subject: pain felt by people. . . . he does get at some gleaming insights. . . .
--Factsheet Five

The Age of the Mother (1992):
In these beautifully spare words, Snider weaves personal mantras of birth, death, and transcendence. He announces the return of the Goddess after centuries of patriarchal dominance.
--Glenn Bach, Small Press Review

Out of . . . profound insight and spiritual wisdom he . . . has created an offering, a magnificent poetic vision, a prayer-book for the coming New Age.
--Marilyn Johnson, Pearl

Clifton Snider is a brave man. . . . he is also a shaman, a journeyer, a traveler who sees past and present interleaving and co-existing. . . . These poems touch something deep and almost forgotten so that you have to remember and know as if for the first time.
--Richard Lee, author of As Is and The Circumstances of Birds 

Go to Art and Poetry to read the poem, "Aspen in the Wind," reprinted in the dedication to the new book.

Read other poems from the new book at the following:

Prehistoric Cave Art II ("Visiting the Cave of Pech-Merle")
Rio Grande Gorge Bridge
St. Anthony's Church
You Tell Me
Victory in Iraq

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To read a few of the poems in The Alchemy of Opposites, click on the following:

The Cave of Niaux.
Le Mont Saint-Michel.
Mountain Lion.
My Selena.

See also New Age.

To read more about the poetry of Clifton Snider, go to Clifton Snider, Poet, The Age of the Mother, and The Alchemy of Opposites.

Snider's career retroscpective, Moonman: New and Selected Poems, was published in 2012 by World Parade Books.

Read about his novels, Wrestling with Angels, Bare Roots, and Loud Whisper.

Read about his book of literary criticism, The Stuff That Dreams Are Made On: A Jungian Interpretation of Literature.

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Page last revised: 14 July 2013