Burning Number Five - Paperback

by Cindy Huyser (Author)

Burning Number Five is Co-Winner of the first Blue Horse Press Chapbook Contest. It was selected by guest judge Larry D. Thomas, 2008 Texas Poet Laureate.Of the countless poetry collections I have been privileged to enjoy over the years, few indeed have been as startlingly original as Burning Number Five: Power Plant Poems. The poet's intimate and detailed knowledge of the boilers and other equipment of a power plant is matched by her knowledge of the intricacies of language, employed in this instance with masterful precision and economy. The title poem is a skillfully executed sonnet whose exquisite lines provide an elegant counterpoint to the violence and potential danger of the subject. These poems, although remarkable in their detailed exploration of the powerful machinery of a plant and the numerous potential dangers it poses to those who tend the terrible machines, also illuminate, with subtlety and consummate artistic skill, the broader concepts of human labor and the paradoxical relationship between humans and technology. Burning Number Five is a memorable, seamless merging of art and science.- Larry D. Thomas, Contest Judge, 2008 Texas Poet Laureate and Member of the Texas Institute of Letters

Author Biography

Cindy Huyser worked at Holly Street Power Plant in Austin, Texas, where she became the first woman to be a Power Plant Control Board Operator and Power Plant Operations Supervisor. She continues to live in Austin, where she now makes her living as a computer programmer. She served as co-editor for the 2009 - 2014 editions of the Texas Poetry Calendar for Dos Gatos Press, and since 2011 has hosted a monthly poetry reading and open mic at BookWoman in Austin. Her work has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including Layers (Plain View Press, 1994) in which 20 of her poems are published.