Please click on the links below to open and download pdf copies of my e-books. They are all sized and formatted for phone or tablet use and will also work fine on PCs.
Tiny Stories .pdf
Tiny Stories started out as a series of short stories. I had been working on them for a few months, and they had become quite long and detailed, when a friend called and asked me if I would like to do a local newspaper series about people I had known who had died of AIDS. That idea fit with my idea for these stories and I said that I would be very interested. As our discussion progressed, however, he emphasized that he was looking for a series of very small pieces. I asked, “How small do you want them?”
He said, “Two hundred and fifty words each.”
“Those aren’t small stories,” I replied, “ they’re tiny stories.” Thus the name of the volume.
As it turned out, the newspaper rejected the series because they were not exactly what they had wanted. But I, liking them more than ever before, began to see them as little poems rather than short stories. I rewrote them into poetry and made a chapbook of them in January of 1991. I printed 30 copies as gifts for a few friends and to sell at an AIDS fund raising art show and poetry reading.
The next thing I knew I had grant money and a publisher and it was a book. It sold well and even made me some money. One may still find paperback copies around. The e-book version shown here does have a few editing changes from the original book, but they are basically only spelling and layout revisions.
I am still quite fond of this work. And I now consider it to be only one poem, rather than a series.
Hope you like it,
Dennis Ciscel
April, 2002
Spiders and Angels .pdf
Spiders and Angels was originally published in 1993 under the title Patting The Air. That book was an expansion of a chapbook, of 1992, of that same name.
Here, in this e-book, I have rewritten it and deleted some of the individual pieces.
I changed the title to both reflect the changes in mood and highlight the individual poems that time has made my favorites.
It is still about living and dying in iambic pentameter.
Enjoy,
Dennis Ciscel
April, 2002
To Fade Away With You .pdf
People have often asked me to put out a volume of more strictly romantic poetry.
This is it.
Hope you like it,
Dennis Ciscel
May, 2002
Prurient Interests .pdf
I suppose that much of my poetry deserves a warning label of some sort.
So, enjoy,
Dennis Ciscel
May 2002
Brightly Wrapped Beneath The Tree .pdf
Brightly Wrapped Beneath the Tree is the last chapbook I put out before Tiny Stories was published. Initially I saw this work as one longish poem of 25 verses. But as time passed, I ended up breaking it up and using various pieces in other collections. Then, later, I stumbled on an old copy of the chapbook and liked it as a whole again, so I have put it up here to share.
Dennis Ciscel
February 5, 2005
My Trip to the Grand Canyon .pdf
I took a trip to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in early September of 2011. It was planned to be for two or three weeks. I was back home on the sixth day. I told my friends that I would write about what happened and let them read the story in a few weeks.
It turned into a long prose poem.
Dennis Ciscel
October 10, 2011
Beginning Gently .pdf
After I finished My Trip to the Grand Canyon I set to work on Beginning Gently as a collection of recent poetry. It took a year longer than I expected.
I stopped and started repeatedly. I felt like I just didn’t understand my project. I mean, it was just supposed to be a collection of recent work.
Finally, my focus became that I would delete every poem that I didn't like completely from the first line to the last. In that spirit, I deleted pieces right and left, repeatedly, for weeks, until I was down to these 52 pieces: They are my favorites from the last several years.
I hope you like them as well.
Dennis Ciscel
December 2012
The Squirrel .pdf
In 2017 I added the new e-book "The Squirrel."
It was writings from the previous 3 years.
I Hope that you like it.
Tiny Stories .pdf
Tiny Stories started out as a series of short stories. I had been working on them for a few months, and they had become quite long and detailed, when a friend called and asked me if I would like to do a local newspaper series about people I had known who had died of AIDS. That idea fit with my idea for these stories and I said that I would be very interested. As our discussion progressed, however, he emphasized that he was looking for a series of very small pieces. I asked, “How small do you want them?”
He said, “Two hundred and fifty words each.”
“Those aren’t small stories,” I replied, “ they’re tiny stories.” Thus the name of the volume.
As it turned out, the newspaper rejected the series because they were not exactly what they had wanted. But I, liking them more than ever before, began to see them as little poems rather than short stories. I rewrote them into poetry and made a chapbook of them in January of 1991. I printed 30 copies as gifts for a few friends and to sell at an AIDS fund raising art show and poetry reading.
The next thing I knew I had grant money and a publisher and it was a book. It sold well and even made me some money. One may still find paperback copies around. The e-book version shown here does have a few editing changes from the original book, but they are basically only spelling and layout revisions.
I am still quite fond of this work. And I now consider it to be only one poem, rather than a series.
Hope you like it,
Dennis Ciscel
April, 2002
Spiders and Angels .pdf
Spiders and Angels was originally published in 1993 under the title Patting The Air. That book was an expansion of a chapbook, of 1992, of that same name.
Here, in this e-book, I have rewritten it and deleted some of the individual pieces.
I changed the title to both reflect the changes in mood and highlight the individual poems that time has made my favorites.
It is still about living and dying in iambic pentameter.
Enjoy,
Dennis Ciscel
April, 2002
To Fade Away With You .pdf
People have often asked me to put out a volume of more strictly romantic poetry.
This is it.
Hope you like it,
Dennis Ciscel
May, 2002
Prurient Interests .pdf
I suppose that much of my poetry deserves a warning label of some sort.
So, enjoy,
Dennis Ciscel
May 2002
Brightly Wrapped Beneath The Tree .pdf
Brightly Wrapped Beneath the Tree is the last chapbook I put out before Tiny Stories was published. Initially I saw this work as one longish poem of 25 verses. But as time passed, I ended up breaking it up and using various pieces in other collections. Then, later, I stumbled on an old copy of the chapbook and liked it as a whole again, so I have put it up here to share.
Dennis Ciscel
February 5, 2005
My Trip to the Grand Canyon .pdf
I took a trip to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in early September of 2011. It was planned to be for two or three weeks. I was back home on the sixth day. I told my friends that I would write about what happened and let them read the story in a few weeks.
It turned into a long prose poem.
Dennis Ciscel
October 10, 2011
Beginning Gently .pdf
After I finished My Trip to the Grand Canyon I set to work on Beginning Gently as a collection of recent poetry. It took a year longer than I expected.
I stopped and started repeatedly. I felt like I just didn’t understand my project. I mean, it was just supposed to be a collection of recent work.
Finally, my focus became that I would delete every poem that I didn't like completely from the first line to the last. In that spirit, I deleted pieces right and left, repeatedly, for weeks, until I was down to these 52 pieces: They are my favorites from the last several years.
I hope you like them as well.
Dennis Ciscel
December 2012
The Squirrel .pdf
In 2017 I added the new e-book "The Squirrel."
It was writings from the previous 3 years.
I Hope that you like it.