Full Description
Flare Stacks in Full Bloom is a collection of eco-feminist poetry set in southeast Texas. This region, sometimes called "Cancer Alley," is home to the nation's largest oil refinery. It has also been on the front lines of climate disasters such as Hurricane Harvey, the historic flooding from Tropical Storm Imelda, and just last year, Hurricanes Laura and Delta. It's a region that feels the tension of climate change: economically, it is dependent on the oil industry, the same industry that poisons its citizens and threatens its lands existence as sea levels rise. Flare Stacks in Full Bloom explores this tension through a chronicle of Hurricane Harvey—before, during, and after the storm, through formal poetry (sonnets, villanelles, and blank verse narratives).
from "Flare Stack Eden"
You smell it like a snake, from miles away—
this Eden made of benzene, naphthalene
and gasoline. The smokestack garden never
rests. It works through day and night, like any
forest does. It turns the blood of earth
into the fuel that makes it sing this dusk
chorus of whistles, bells, and whooshing flame.
You look up, imagining these towers
as tupelo trees that scrape the sky.
All around you, pipelines form a labyrinth,
meandering like streams for endless miles.
The whistle blows like Bachman's sparrow's song,
beckons your return as you slip on
your work boots once again to toil through
the nightshift, promising a world of green.
Suddenly, a flare stack blooms as quickly
as a burst of evening primrose, fills
the sky with something almost beautiful
in vibrant hues of gold and cherry red.
Standing at the gate in awe, you breathe,
tasting the awful cost of paradise.
Contents
Loblolly Serenade
Flare Stack Eden
Hunger
Katy Prairie, May
Loblolly Serenade
Prayer of Prey
Monologue of the Plastic Grocery Bag
Urban Jungle
Ms. Faust
Hill Country Myrtle
Lupinus Texensis
Sisyphus in Southeast Texas
Crude
Falfurrias Checkpoint, February
Something There is That Doesn't Love a Wall
A January Thursday in El Valle
Spring in Houston
The Day Before Another Apocalypse
Another Testament of Hurricane Harvey
The Storm's Genesis
The Body's Apocalypse
The Wrath of Mother Nature's Child
Exodus: Evacuee
Hemiplegic Heirloom
The Gospel of High Water
Leviticus—How to be Holy as an Evacuee
Mother Earth
At Isla Blanca Park
Joshua—Returning Home
Beaumont, After Harvey
Harvey Refugee
Job
Why You Shouldn't Fall in Love with East Texas
Lamentations—An Abecedarian for Beaumont
Another Houston Flood, Mother's Day
Proverbs—How to prepare for the Next Big Storm
The Cracked Cheesecake of God
Zechariah—Our Lady of Refuge Church, Refugio
Willy Burger. After Harvey
James—Big Tree
Revelation
Hope Like Wildflowers
Beaumont Bloom
Poem for Proctor Street, 2018
The Price of Paradise
Boom Town
Elegy for a Pair of Steel-Toed Work Boots
Morning Light, Beaumont
Upon Seeing a Produce Stand on Farm Road 107
Beauty as an Invasive Species
Hope like Wildflowers
The Great Cerulean Recycling Bin
Texas Flamingo
Houston Magnolia Sonnet
Beaumont Smoke
Hummingbirds in Houston
Spring in the Borderlands
Pomegranate Magic
The Longleaf Pine Tree
Resurrection, Easter Morning
First Freeze
Her Apocalypse
Couplets for the End of Hurricane Season, 2018
Nightshift, Baytown
