Many Hats

<p>As Mike Schneider writes in his poem Astrakahn <em>time & space collapse</em> in these poems about hats orienting readers to the anarchic lyricism of his <strong><em>Many Hats</em></strong>. For instance Marge of TV's <em>The Simpsons</em> coexists with Francisco Goya Ukraine's Orange Revolution Bolshevik terror and the poem's namesake lamb's-fur hat. The poems each titled for a style of hat bring widely diverse people and things together in a linguistic space bounded only by imagination.</p><p></p><p>With an epigraph from Max Ernst's 1920 collage The Hat Makes the Man Schneider invokes the dada-esque spirit of European artists and writers a century ago. Each hat-from Fedora to Tuque-triggers a round of lexical play touching many pages of western culture along the way. </p><p></p><p>Stylistically unlike much contemporary American poetry these hats rely almost not-at-all on confessional narrative. The autobiographical I seldom speaks. Exuberance is beauty declared William Blake. Drawing from pop culture including movies novels and cartoons Schneider injects-as he says in Stovepipe -a dose of exuberance into the body of the world. </p><p></p><p><strong>----- Early Praise -----</strong></p><p></p><p>In Mike Schneider's new collection <em>Many Hats</em> moments of sharp self-interrogation break through the surface of playful pop-culture-saturated poems titled for a variety of different hats. Schneider is quick-witted and his deft handling of language heightens the poems' music. Surveying the role the titular hats play in twentieth-century cinema he highlights the relationship between whimsy and contemplation. </p><p class=ql-align-justify><strong>-Speer Morgan editor <em>The Missouri Review</em></strong></p><p></p><p></p><p>With Mike Schneider's brandishment of hats I've taken my fine time to see how each one fits. I recommend them-an education in headwear that's also an exercise in serious poetry-play. Original entertaining informative memorable-joyfully creative what else would we want a collection of poems to be? To Schneider and these poems I take my hat off. </p><p><strong>-Jeff Worley Kentucky Poet Laureate (2019-2020)</strong></p>