Psychopomps
January 2019
108 pp
$2.99 ebook
$5.99 print
Buy on Amazon
About the Book
Death comes to all eventually. Sometimes sudden, sometimes
prolonged. Seldom welcome. And yet it remains as one of the few things we share
with all other living creatures, regardless of race, color, creed or even
wealth. With this in mind, Psychopomps is a collection of poetry and short
stories that delve into and explore the theme of death, in all its many forms.
Brutal in places, serene in others, it is a work that is as stylistically
diverse as death itself, with a unique voice reaching out at the reader from
experimental prose and traditional meter, to form a whole that links each to
the other. Whether you read large portions of it at one sitting or simply leaf
through it in a spare moment during a busy day, the effects of each piece will
remain with you long after the pages have been closed.
My Review
After realizing that I had to look up the meaning of the
title of Viloth’s latest publishing endeavor, I was in a slightly better place—but
only slightly. Psychopomps is from the Greek for guides of the soul, creatures
who take the freshly dead to an appropriate afterlife. The mix of cultures and
faiths throughout the author’s lyrical offerings alludes to the many aspects of
death.
I like poetry and I adore cleverness, but Viloth’s work leaves
me in the dust. He takes the reader on a journey that is as small as the space
of one kneeling in heartache to the maw of a whale to the world’s end and a
stumble into the “no more” of piece #20.
The grouping of personal observation, of absurdity, of dark
joy, the cadence of pieces like “Children’s Fable” with the refrain “I wish I
had a name! I’m so Happy…” flows like a braided stream, bubbly in some places,
whistling in the dark shadows under rockfall, to the “curious phenomenon” of a
family-swallowing stream in the longest piece, “The Ambiguous Guest.”
The heart of the work, to me, is found in the title piece,
in a Ulyssian-style refrain lamenting our own inability to seize the moment.
the cruelest privilege of the
world is this: that we go about our
days while believing that we are
not yet living, that our stories
have not yet begun. that someday
we will leap up into action,
exclaiming “I have awoken;
finally, my true self has arrived,”
and in thinking thusly become sedated
through all our chapters…
Psychompomps is recommended for those who appreciate
tiptoeing through mortality in song and tale, sipping a toast of Bacchanalian
treasure while feasting on wit.
About the Author
I'm currently employed as a sports writer. Recently, I
assisted in welcoming the Dalai Lama to the Overture Center, managed and
programmed the Isthmus Jazz Festival, and co-taught UW-Madison's 400-level
Shakespeare course. I currently work as a sports writer (American football) for
Rotowire.
Moby-Dick is my passion.
I recently completed and published my first full-length
novel, The Inconsistencies: A Comical Tragedy In Two Parts. My new novella,
Psychopomps, will be released Q1 2019.
I am in the process of discovering life after university.
The world is open.
