"We quest here an Endless, where peeling away layers of land
grows us into something vast."
Photograph by Tim Goodman
Drive, They Said
Latest release by Eliot Schain and Harrison Flynn
“Eliot Schain’s and Harrison Flynn’s Drive, They Said—its title echoing Creeley’s great poem—takes the genre in a direction I’d given up on encountering. Schain’s poetry is delivered in the old declamatory style, yes, but its fresh craft and content shine through the artful delivery. Flynn’s guitar compositions—steel here, acoustic there, tender or tense, blues or jazz, with edgy vamps and riffs—fit perfectly with Schain’s honed tone poems. In a time when forthright American collaborative art is needed more than ever, Drive, They Said revives something deep for us—not mere nostalgia, but a lost American honesty.”
— Gerald Fleming
Available on Spotify and Apple Music
Vinyl available upon request: eschain@mac.com
The Distant Sound
Latest release by Eliot Schain
"The smaller moments of a life become epic and transcendent through the attentions of the poet’s mind. This is Eliot Schain’s gift. Nothing is ordinary—not an old friendship from youth, not a spouse of many years. Everything is seen keenly and anew."
— Kazim Ali
"Intense and energetic, these poems cut through to the inner workings of the soul. Schain’s dense lines are packed with layers of meaning that move between incredibly dark moments and glowing bright spots. An absolutely beautiful collection of poems."
—Judy Halebsky
Purchase The Distant Sound
from Sixteen Rivers Press
More praise for the poetry
An unforgettable modern voice… In Schain’s poetry, the inexhaustible American hunger confronts its limits—wilderness defiled by industry, the nuclear family gone ballistic, love turned impossible. Here widom and madness live side-by-side, take the reader’s hand, and walk us toward the uncertain future. Once you have heard his cadences, you will not forget.
Eliot Schain is a treasure—a poet with a sharp edge and a broad canvass. Some artists have irony, some have vision; Schain has both, and tests them against each other with fire and wit. The results are wild, beautiful, and necessary.
Eliot Schain on W.S. Merwin
See Schain's review of W.S. Merwin's last two books