In the House of the Sun
Edition: First
Publisher: Empyreal Press
Published: 2004
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 100
First sentence: Please go to this web site for a selection of Skarstedt's poetry (which includes pieces from In the House of the Sun): http://www.skarwood.com/ZapSASpoems.htm
Description: Hawai‘i continues to conjure images in the extreme, from the paradisally spectacular to the commercial and crass. Based on the author’s visits there in the early 1990s, these poems tap into the islands’ dazzling, often contradictory tapestry of sights, sounds and savours: from the past simmering beneath its volatile soil, to the urbanization and greed that threaten to eradicate its Tahitian cultural roots. There is the tragic paradox of Kaho‘olawe (“the Forbidden Isle”), and the devastation of 1992’s Hurricane Iniki. Pele and the gods of creation are also explored, including a trek through Haleakala Crater, which inspired the title of this book. A brief glossary of Hawaiian terminology is included.
Notes: New Mexico's license plates claim that their State is the Land of Enchantment, but In the House of the Sun Hawai'i becomes its own form of enchantment. In the few days that I've had to read it these picture-perfect images are etching their way into my memory just as sharply as acid designs delineate a copper plate. It is like discovering thoughts you didn't know you had and recognizing that a true seer has provided for you an encompassing insight into faraway places. To have the luxury to feel the distant sands, to drift among the adolescent corals with pock-marked complexions and to converse with ancient Hawaiian spirits without leaving the North American continent is mind travel at its best! Emerson once said that 'A vivid thought brings the power to paint it; and in proportion to the depth of its source is the force of its projection.' And so it is with this writing: the power of painting is entwined in the grasp of the poetry resulting in the music of the mind." 

Susan Davey, Virginia, March 2005