Mary Biddinger’s Prairie Fever:
Don’t expect any mild-mannered nature poetry about prairie wildlife here, although wildlife does appear, torn and bedraggled, birds dead on windowsills, red flowers appearing on throats. Full of dark fragmentary looks at the inner and outer violences of the bored bad girls of the prairie, poking dead bodies with sticks, rinsing their hair with beer, and making out in abandoned barns. Stark, vivid writing illuminating shadows with lightning-sharp imagery and bone-cracking emotion.

Did some more Expedia work today, then combed Craigslist for places to live, which were all too expensive, which made me comb Craigslist for more part-time work. All in all, depressing.

In reading news:
Peter’s new book reading at Open Books was standing room only, and Peter was wonderful. His new book even has a couple of mythology-alluding poems in it! You know I’m a sucker for those. Here’s the first few lines from “Case History: Persephone:”
“The visiting surgery resident
inserts the icy speculum
while the mother stands nearby
clutching her only daughter’s pale hand.
Outside the window – a barren
January day. The long fields lie empty,
their edges stitched with bare trees.”
Isn’t he a great poet?