A Dog’s Life

Adam Scheffler

Winner, 2016 Jacar Press Full-length Contest

A Dog’s Life is a delightful romp through Americana by way of ‘real’ America with sly, politically engaged poems. Though this poet issues a rallying cry against ‘siren songs of entertainment,’ his poems are completely entertaining but, at the same time, completely wise. He takes on true love, extinction, our fragile environment, war, technology, porn, aging and our fight against it, cancer, nursing homes, and death. A Dog’s Life is an enlightened look at Doritos, Carson Daly, Walmart, McDonalds, theme parks, and, of course, dogs.”

Denise Duhamel

“The real singers – whether lamenting or praising – give us a sense of life as larger than we could have expressed before they arrived. With an explorer’s curiosity and drive, Adam Scheffler turns his poems into a treasury. He speaks of the value and wonder in small and large things, and like a dog (the dog he’d have us believe his soul is), meets the world with undisguised exuberance. These poems are spiritual in the way poetry is best suited to be: they articulate our good fortune to be alive.”

Bob Hicok

Get a Dog

It’s good to see someone staring up at your nude body
without a sign of interest
and to have someone to share all your
vices with, giving a tithe of 10 percent of all snacks;
yes it widens and inflates the soul
to give regularly and not to feel braggy about it,
and to be allowed to bury a loved one in your
own backyard for once, beneath the outhouse of
their own favorite lemon tree –
even to see your yard riddled with curious holes the
gophers and snakes move into is healthy and
reminds you you don’t really own anything –
and gives you an excuse to be outside alone
without getting lung cancer – or frightening the
neighbors by your wish to be introspective;
and who but dogs will teach you an appropriate
fear of small children, or how to perceive
the ghost-world of secret smells like ESP
– so no two fences can be passed without admiration –
or pull you into the chase like a nature show
where you can hold the tiger back at
the last second so everyone can go home,
but still allow it the joy of the hunt.

ISBN 978-0-936481-11-1