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Herrmann writes conscientious personal poems in this collection. His writing is quite original. He juxtaposes two times in one of my favorite poems in the book “Intersection” delving into the Pony Express and a modern day Kansas Highway. He offers up a variety of poems from nature to traveling to farming and religion. The poems are carefully placed within to compliment the entire book’s flow. From the poem “Chopping Fingers”: “Unable to write / her anger rose – / the ink pen refills / did not write, / though newly bought / the ink had dried.” It’s obvious he takes great care with his craft oblivious to expectations and that’s what makes his work so unique. It takes courage to speak and write one’s truths.

– S B Sedlacek, Poetry Market E-zine

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In this volume, Duane L Herrmann invites readers to follow him across the rolling plains and dark roads of Kansas, encountering creatures wild, tame, or something in between. One of the beasts in the book, the incognitum, is long extinct. Most are more familiar – rabbits, birds, and even mosquitoes – but seen from new perspectives. The most frightening creatures in these poems, though, are human.

Herrmann wrote some of the poems after his mother’s death, as a way to process that experience. Others were written to document and re-examine earlier incidents from that fraught relationship. Duane shares them here in hopes that those with similar experiences might be reassured they are not alone.

“Remnants of a Life” explores the shadows we usually keep hidden, as well as the beauty of the natural world and life on the plains. With a view of prairie grass and endless sky as its backdrop, the book is ultimately hopeful: a testament to the power of words to help us survive difficulties, and a reminder that spring always returns.

–Publisher, Lighted Lake Press

Sample Poems

TABLE MANNER

In silent protest:
the food came up.
He did not want to eat it.

Startling all
she grabbed the clean jar
and caught every drop.

Then she made him drink it.

The next time
she didn’t bother with a jar
but clamped her hand
on his small mouth.
He gagged
but swallowed it again.

Sometimes,
it is still hard for the man
to swallow.

~~

KILLER BOY

By age twelve
I was an expert killer:
one clean slice
through the neck,
they didn’t feel a thing,
toss the body aside –
on to the next,
blood didn’t bother.
Some would spasm,
others tried to run,
but not for long.
I was good –
took success in stride.
It was a family pattern,
we had to kill.

Without the killing:
no fried chicken
for Sunday dinner!

~~

TWICE

Twice in her last week
my mother,
that screaming,
vindictive,
demanding
creature in my life
who drove me
more than once
to yearn for suicide,
moved her hand,
I did not know why,
towards me.
The hand that slapped,
which gave concussion,
and forced down vomit,
reached to me.
I watched wondering,
what would she do?
To my surprise,
she held my hand
tenderly,
with more affection
than I’d ever known.

I cried

Despite her screaming
she did care –

then, she died.

Purchase Links

Paperback:
https://www.amazon.com/Remnants-Life-Duane-L-Herrmann/dp/0996962719/

eBook:
https://www.amazon.com/Remnants-Life-Duane-L-Herrmann-ebook/dp/B081J6W93T/