William Walrond Strangmeyer was born in Roanoke, Virginia, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York and Brofus, New Jersey. Now a resident of Paris since 1977, he continues to earn his living as an English language trainer, formatting young adults and other undesirables so that they can produce growth in business, and as a translator, as if he were a young James Joyce.
His main influences are science fiction, doo-wop and psychedelic music and a misspent youth, along with the usual: Eliot, Pound, Wallace Stevens, Poe, Catullus, Larkin, Elroy, Doctor Seuss, Forugh Farrokhzad, Beaudelaire. Also: Emmylou Harris, Roy Jones Jr., Stoya, Leonard Cohen, Fedor Emilianenko, Bartok, Rodney Crowell, Nolan Strong, Leroy Griffin, Roy Orbison and other sadly missed voices that often come and go. His motto this year is, “All dust is gold,” but sometimes he forgets and thinks to himself, “A life in exile comes to feel like home but still home gnaws and eats away at the bone.” He usually tries to keep a straight face.
Restless Demons Sing to Me of Angels’ Wings and Human Claws
In William Walrond Strangmeyer’s spellbinding collection of poetry, no stone goes unturned when it comes to holding The Man accountable. Railing against the Establishment at the same time as Strangmeyer muses about love (and the fantasy of it that can so often be debunked), passion and musical heroes, among other subjects, he takes his reader through the different phases of—and reconciliations with—life, as it were, in sections divided into the following: Dream Life, Inquisitions, Denunciations, Shared Fragments, Trills and Out & Back. And it is through each poem that Strangmeyer will lead his reader to one of the most important revelations of all: “We all must have a life we love.”
theopiatebooks.com 