Full Description
For nearly half a century Jared Carter has been quietly mapping the American heartland. Line by line, his poetry has shown us the landscape, sounded the voices, conjured the music, and tested the silence of the ever-changing and yet ever-constant Midwest that figures so prominently in the American story. And yet what we find in Carter's poetry is endlessly new. Here, in poems selected from his first five books, is the summer-long buzz of the cicada and the crack of the cue ball, the young rebel on his big Harley, and the YMCA secretary who backstrokes her way across the indoor pool. Here, too, are thirty new poems in fixed form that illustrate Carter's continued quest for a poetry of "universal interest." Taken together, these selections are, truly, poetry in the American grain.
Contents
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction by Ted Kooser
From Work, for the Night Is Coming / 1981GeodesEarly WarningThe MadhouseFor Jack ChathamWalking the TiesGlacierMississinewa County RoadThe UndertakerThe Oddfellows' Waiting-Room at Glencove CemeteryMonument CityWork, for the Night Is ComingAt the Sign-Painter'sTurning the BrickLanding the BeesThe MeasuringGinsengShaking the PeoniesBirdstone
From After the Rain / 1993After the RainPhoenixScryerThe GleaningThe ShrivingThe Purpose of PoetryMississinewa Reservoir at Winter PoolPoem Written on a Line from the Walam OlumFoundlingCicadasBarn SidingInterviewDrawing the AntiqueFor an Old FlamePortrait StudioCecropia MothFor Starr Atkinson, Who Designed BooksSeed StormGalleynipperChangelingMourning DovesThe BelieversFrom Les Barricades MystÉrieuses / 1999ImprovisationSummonsCandleBerceuseCemeteryInterludeFordMillefioriClavichordTankroomPhosphorescencePalimpsestLabyrinthLinenRepriseHawkmothComet
From Cross this Bridge at a Walk / 2006Covered BridgeVisitRecollections of a Contingent of Coxey's Army Passing through Straughan, Indiana, in April of 1894SpireaPicking Stone
From A Dance in the Street / 2012Prophet TownshipRoadside CrossesSummitFire Burning in a 55-Gallon DrumIn the Warehouse DistrictIn the Military ParkThe Pool at NoonPlastic SackHidden DoorWind EggWhat Is Dream?SphinxWarAt the Art InstituteUp in MichiganBlank PaperUnder the Snowball BushMourning Dove AscendingCicadas in the RainSnow
New PoemsCloudsSchoolhouseDryadAwakeningHomesteadGoneWebEtruriaBoleynVowCross-harpTorcAriadnePoetryPerseusTwilightQuestionPolyxenaGraveyardAchillesMourningPhiloctetesAdulteryArmorPriestessMothJourneymanVisitorPrescriptionEvergreen
