RABT Virtual Book Tour and Giveaway: Requiem by Daniel Ståhl

What comes to your mind when you think about sonnets? For me, I think of The Bard himself, William Shakespeare as well as John Donne, Christina Rossetti, Edna St. Vincent Millay, John Keats, and Elizabeth Barret Browning – all classic poets who have shaped the path for others. Daniel Ståhl’s Requiem is a book of poetry – to be more precise, it is a book of sonnets that are all interwoven together to tell a story. The book begins with a “Read Me,” an introduction to the poems – all are “fourteen lines in three groups of four (quatrains) with a final two lines (couplet) at the end.”(1).

It can be a challenge to write a good sonnet these days – much less a crown. A crown, he writes, is “where each sonnet is joined to the next by the rhymes of the last and first lines, respectively. In heroic crowns, as the ones in this collection, each crown consists of fourteen such joined sonnets, with a fifteenth master sonnet where each line is the first line of each of the fourteen preceding sonnets.” For poetry lovers, and those wishing to study the art, Daniel Ståhl’s Requiem provides a modern example of a job well-done.

Poetry

Date Published:

Hard-cover: December 2020

Paperback: January 2021

Kindle/e-book: January 2021

Audiobook: January 2021

Through its 211 interwoven poems, this double-tiered recursive crown of sonnets takes the reader on an epic journey to the heart of mankind’s would-be nemesis – herself – and back again. Does her destiny await in the unexplored depths of the cosmos, or in a toxic wasteland of her own making? Does she have the will to shape her own future, or is she a slave to her myopic wants and impulses?

Requiem takes the existential threats facing humanity – from the destruction of the environment to nuclear holocaust – as a lens through which to reflect on the fate of civilization, humanity and ultimately conscious life in the universe.

About The Author

A software engineer by trade, Daniel Ståhl splits his time between software development, research, teaching, writing and being the father of two.

Daniel has previously published both fiction and non-fiction, with his latest forays as an author delving into strictly metered poetry. His latest book, Requiem, came into being in the intersection between the rhythmic cadence of sonnets and his despair at the sanguine apathy with which the human species approaches the prospect of its own extinction – with all of its implications for his children.

Daniel received his MSc degree from Linköping University, Sweden, and his PhD degree from the University of Groningen, Netherlands.

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