Bücher von Mark Spitzer

Mark Spitzer lived a life of monstrous passion, continuous inspiration, and constant fascination; but at 57 years, it wasn't long enough. He published nearly forty books: most about fish and the environment, plus novels, memoirs, literary translations, creative writing pedagogy, and, of course, poetry. He was a creative writing professor at Truman State University in Missouri and the University of Central Arkansas where he designed and founded the Arkansas Writers MFA Workshop. He also edited the legendary Toad Suck Review, which evolved into the poetry series Toad Suck Éditions. Having lived in the American North, South, Midwest, and West, and having traveled as much of the world as possible, he spent the coda of his most epic poem (his own damn life) loving family and friends in historic Hyde Park, New York.

Cryptozarkia is a bestiary of freaky Ozark hybrids whose cast includes hoop snakes, wampus cats, man-eating gator gars, bogus Ozark howlers, the mythical blue humans of Blowing Cave lore, the last rampaging American wild man, the notorious marauding Mexican crab tick, and much much more. Via the avant-garde approach of investigative poetics, monster-spelunker Mark Spitzer hunts these enigmas down, interviews authorities, cites folklore and history, and boils down fact and fiction for the amusement of both skeptics and true believers. The result is a vivid, scholarly mosaic of how and why imaginations create mash-ups of the natural world gone crypto.