By Daniel Haskin
Scripted Life
Short Form Poetry and Ekphrasis
Daniel Haskin is a poet, visual artist, songwriter, and composer, who resides in Buffalo, NY. His poetry and illustrations have been seen in newspapers and national literary journals. Scripted Life is his seventh book of poems and verse.
Poet, Writer, Illustrator
Daniel Haskin
The Writer
My work can be abstract, it can be love, it can be painful, it can be rhythmic, and it can be musical. Poetry can be a story without a beginning or end. Sometimes if you touch that little spark of darkness inside your soul you can pull something out that’s memorable.
Bio
Daniel Haskin is an artist, musician, composer, writer, and poet. His poetry collections, “Rain Flowers“, “Picture Book“, “The Shallow Sea“, “Past Life Invisible“, “Amnesia“, and now “Scripted Life”, are poems that explore the human condition. He has also been published in the Buffalo News and various national literary journals. His pen mood fluctuates while he writes from his own perspective. Precise and particular word choices not only rouse visual images, but also provoke feelings and acts. His themes of longing and regret, seeking and finding, recognizing and remembering run strong, as does his theme of acceptance for what was and for what will never be.
Daniel Haskin was born in Buffalo, New York, and was educated in the United States and in the UK (Chelmsford, Essex). While attending Daemen College in Amherst, New York, he majored in art and illustration, minoring in music history. His education led him to cultivate multiple careers in the arts. Over time, he with, his band “The Dreaming”, released three albums: “Silent”, “Picturebook Rain”, “Shadow Days”, and a solo studio-produced electronic album, titled “Machines of Love and War”. As a musician, his breakout moment came when the British Broadcasting Company aired and previewed specific tracks from “Machines of Love and War”.
As an artist and illustrator, he designed the covers and interior illustrations for: “Polish Folk Legends” (written by Florence W Clowes), and his own poetry collections, “The Shallow Sea”, “Past Life Invisible”, “Amnesia”, and “Picture Book”. Other drawings were published in “The Polish American Journal”, “The Buffalo News”, “The Buffalo Arts Review”, and other national publications. Daniel Haskin and his wife Jeanne currently reside in Buffalo, New York, with their Jack Russell Terrier Juno.
Curious of Our Own Creation
Jeanne’s song
is curious
of the colors
of the morning,
and the stretch
across the evening
when time
does not exist.
I will follow you
through the grass
and the rain,
where lilies sing
and dazzle birds
call out beneath
your green unlocked
[words].
until we are the air,
the light of winter
above, the saffron sun
glancing down,
singing [of] yellow,
sunlight is [love].
All that ends
does end in love,
in the beautiful
world of home,
where we will
always be,
curious of our own
creation.
© Daniel Haskin
Propeller Flowers
In my dream
milk is like ink but calm,
like a sea of clotheslines,
a place of drying quietly.
I trip across the sheets,
hung from blue and ladders.
Tilted towards the moon
I climb out midway
from everywhere.
The moon is steep and slow,
from this place
there are no parachutes,
only propeller flowers grow.
© Daniel Haskin
Scripted Life
Rain Flowers
Other Books
Amnesia
Past Life Invisible
The Shallow Sea
Picture Book
Vivid Writing
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Haskin knows the poet’s craft very well and writes in a variety of styles. “Self-Portrait with Blake” captures the vitality of Blake’s art and expands upon it profoundly. “I bray to the wind from god’s symmetry designed” it concludes.
“Murderous Days” is a tender homage to a loved one. “Death is an Anachronism” refers to Ophelia and reflects on the ending of life.
This book is serious, accessible poetry and deserves to be read.
– Arthur W. Turfa
Author of “Accents”
Flowing Feelings
This short collection of poetry has a great feel to it and the author’s words have a flowing style I think many will enjoy. This is the first collection of poems by this author I have picked up and I enjoyed them enough I know it won’t be the last.
– P.S.W.
Poetry for the average reader & poet
Beautiful images and mesmerizing rhythms. This collection has a way of using the right words with the right lyricism to convey more than just images, but also moods. Excellent works of art throughout that anyone can appreciate, even if you don’t usually read poetry.