E.M. Schorb

Murderer's Day

"Schorb has finessed his own way into the deep, and the poems in Murderer's Day will challenge both your mind and your soul. They will also make you laugh with joy at the mind's swift and graceful flight into wit and fancy."
--Dannye Romine Powell, The Charlotte Observer


"The characteristics of E.M. Schorb's poetry call to mind such words as 'graceful' or 'gracious': words that take as their root the word 'grace.' The opening poem 'Poetry in Motion' illustrates these qualities. It consists of two descriptions: the one of a woman in the present, and the other of the same woman in the past. To the author the woman is totally unchanged. Her similarity to the past astounds him. He seems to have doubts of his sanity, but is saved by the realization that modern physics no longer sees the universe in strictly material terms. Modern science accepts poetry as a possible source of truth. And in a very graceful resolution of the conflict between poetry and science, Schorb makes clear that poetry exists in motion across 'the warp and woof of time,' (that is, across and through human experience) where the microscope and telescope cannot reach. Schorb has a high-spirited sense of humor. He is anything but didactic. His approach to ideas is always tentative, teasing, light, filled with grace in every sense."
--P.B. Newman, Southern Poetry Review

Selected Works

New Novel
FORTUNE ISLAND
During the deep middle of the last century, a lonely young girl, a strong-willed woman, and an obsessively loyal man meet to form a tragic triangle on an Outer Banks desolate island.
Prose Poems
A Fable and Other Prose Poems
Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in America and published in China, "A Fable" is not a poem, ballad or a narrative epic--it is Americana, a classic.
Novel
A Portable Chaos
"'Chaos' has everything you want in good literature-- poignant writing, drama, and redemption." -- Christopher Klim, Editor, Writers Notes Magazine
Historical Mystery
Paradise Square
"A crackling good story told in the compelling, precise prose of a poet."
--award citation, Walter Anderson, Publisher, Parade Publications
Noir Thriller
Scenerio For Scorsese
"An addition to the crime fiction canon that tackles the underworld as no other novel has done before."
--Anthony Dauer, Editor, Judas_ezine
Poetry
Murderer's Day
Winner of the Verna Emery Poetry Prize, Purdue University Press
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