Acclaim

Kudos for Beyond Beowulf continue to pour in – every few months! The latest comes from Writers Digest which has an annual contest for independently published books in several categories, including poetry. I sent my entry in long ago and learned last week that they had not decided to call Beyond Beowulf the book of the year. But they sent along the judge’s evaluation. There were three categories and it got top rating in two of them, “grammar” and “structure,” but only 3 on a scale of 1 to 5 for “cover design.” I passed that on to iUniverse for them to think about. They recently had it redesigned for Barnes and Noble but only the type face was changed.

The detailed opinion of the judge follows. Some of it is now excerpted on the iUniverse, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble web sites. I trust “the general reader who likes epics, and … scholarly readers of poetry” will rush to their bookstores and two or three copies will be purchased.

“This is a very unusual book-it stood out among those I read. It is essentially a sequel to the Old English poem Beowulf although written at a far remove in time and space. The poetry follows the form of the original as closely as possible (given that they are written in essentially different languages.) This is an intellectually ambitious work. The writing is by turns philosophic and adventurous, wise and thrilling, the back material is very professional and gives a good impression. A reader looking at it will be motivated to then look inside the book. Congratulations on finishing and publishing this project. It will be of interest to the general reader who likes epics, and to scholarly readers of poetry.”

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