East Brainerd painter Daniel Swanger expands his artistic offerings this month with the publication of “A Treasured Keepsake of Art: Classical Sonnets, Verse, and Essays,” a collection of creative writings and commentaries from 1971 to 2002.
“It’s a very lofty kind of book,” Swanger said.
Most of the works are written in iambic pentameter, he said – Petrarchan sonnets of unattainable love drawn from his studies of John Milton at Northern Illinois University. The recurring themes of Greek and Roman mythology begin in poems written at 16 like “Allegorical Ode on Diana and Actaeon,” which ends with a double heroic couplet – a joke on Shakespeare, he said.
Painter and writer Daniel Swanger says his first book, “A Treasured Keepsake of Art: Classical Sonnets, Verse and Essays,” a collection spanning 31 years, is a “genteel gift volume” for the holidays.The 31-year collection includes a poem penned to his suburban Chicago high school muse, Gabrielle, a 126-line ode to a moon mission, essays on religion and the plight of the homeless and a dedication to Charles, Prince of Wales, “before the scandal,” for his efforts to preserve classical architecture.
Others are a little more down to earth, like “Labor Day,” a sonnet about the last days of summer with the line, “While Dad and I lounge languid by the lake; no reedy goat-foot Pan is seen.”
Several of Swanger’s writings from those decades were lost after he accidentally burned one pastoral tragicomedy with the trash and also banished his memoirs for being “too bohemian” after publishers of Guggenheim’s and Dali’s memoirs shied from a planned book.
The “Treasured Keepsake” publisher Strategic Book Group, however, has had nothing but shining feedback for Swanger, calling his book “at the highest level of your chosen topics.”
“The publisher says we should be in touch for decades,” he said.
Swanger earned a bachelor of fine arts in studio art at the Art Institute of Chicago. At 19 years old he sold his coin collection to buy his way to New York City, putting in time at ad agencies and museums.
“I was so naive I thought I should start at the top,” he said. “It was sort of an adventure. That’s the story of my life.”
He’s also dabbled in other creative arts, assembling a symphony out of recordings.
Swanger has been painting portraits at the Chattanooga Market for eight years and also sells small oil paintings of Chattanooga scenes. His artwork will be shown at an Association for Visual Arts salon show for members through Dec. 19 and is for sale at Hidden Treasures Gift Shop on River Street through Jan. 1.