Poetry. Hybrid Genre. Like so much of Jack Mueller's work, this book is more about climate than weather. Both QWERTY and CHICKEN WINDOWS take mundane moments, thoughts, occurrences, and relocate them into new places, bright and active at all points. The disparate nature of these two works is a microcosm of the author's larger life, lived according to one of his major maxims: obey emerging form. He continually discovered new ways of saying what he had to say, new ways to write it down. All of Jack's work is imbued with humor-wisdom that, among other things, rises from his acquaintance with paradox, his coyote eye splays on every page. In QWERTY, Jack pokes fun at the keyboard, the object that has become so ubiquitous as to be almost invisible. On the surface, CHICKEN WINDOWS is a light-hearted collection of flash-prose pieces; a galloping autobiography that begins at age 45 minutes. Jack Mueller died in April 2017; this is his first work to be published posthumously.
