The poems of California poet, artist, fiction author, cultural critic, educator Dennis Saleh (1942-2020) encompass surrealism, pharaonic Egypt, chameleons as metaphor and vice versa, as well as the exquisiteness of a day or season passing in a seaside town. Born in Chicago, Dennis lived most of his life in the Golden State, including a childhood and young adulthood in Fresno, teaching in the California State and University of California systems, and crafting mass-market books on rock album covers and on 14 classic sci-fi movies. His poems appeared widely in literary magazines, and were gathered in chapbooks and full-length collections. His word-and-image collages were frequently featured in Ventura’s Art Life magazine, while his fiction appeared in US and Irish magazines. “Saleh’s images,” wrote LA’s Psychological Perspectives, “stir us like half-remembered dreams.”
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PRAISE:
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The poems of Dennis Saleh . . . are so mysterious, so surprising, so delightful. They open magical doors into unexpected worlds . . . where time shrugs, stones sing, the gods are given lessons in humility, and a chameleon is king. His poems are jewels of the imaginal and invocations of the sacred.
–Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, Psychological Perspectives.
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Dennis Saleh’s poetic voice was original, unmistakable, and remains vividly alive in this wonderful collection. From the exquisite tenderness of a poem like “Lullaby”, to a poem in which a thumb is elected president, Saleh’s poetry is psychologically astute, endlessly surprising, and is marked by a musicality that often belies the fabulous nature of so much of his poetry. Saleh’s work remains essential, and The Days Asking After Themselves is a testament to that.
–Gary Young, author of Even So: New and Selected Poems and American Analects
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Since the early ’70s I have admired and enjoyed the entirely unique and compelling voice of Dennis Saleh‘s poetry—its care for and precision of language. His vision and imagination consistently find motivation, and revelation, in the psychology of the speaker, in the larger psychology of the tribe.
–Christopher Buckley, editor of Naming the Lost: The Fresno Poets
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