Description
Book SynopsisFalling somewhere between a "diary-poem," a "daybook," "autobiography-in-verse," and an "essay-poem," In a Landscape is noted poet and critic John Gallaher's most personal, straightforward, and revealing book yet. In lyric-prose that continuously circles the questions it raises, Gallaher sloughs off the garb of "poet" to address life questions in a way that few poets of his generation have been willing to risk. Family, death, adoption, children, parents, high school, music ...Gallaher's subjects carry weight because of their absolute commonness. John Gallaher is assistant professor of English at Northwest Missouri State University, and co-editor of the Laurel Review.
Trade Review"Like all curious and worried (not neurotic) artists, Gallaher would rather communicate psychically ... but like all of us he has to use words. You can feel it in his sentences, that if you were to actually talk to him he would probably say 'you know??' a lot. I think it's because we all 'do know,' we just don't know until someone triggers that thing which is the nerve ending that travels to the subconscious and PING! So yeah, maybe I was wrong ... Gallaher is not a writer or a poet, he is a psychic using words to trick us." --Wayne Coyne, The Flaming Lips "I have long considered John Gallaher to be one of the most thought-provoking poets of his generation, and In a Landscape is his best book yet. These poems are fidgety and sneaky--engaged with a world of characters, traffic, memories, and perception. But just beneath their deceptively playful surfaces lies real urgency, as Gallaher grapples with the instability of the recollected past, the nature of mortality, and the impossibility of truly knowing the intentions of others. Reading these poems is like listening in on the thoughts of a brilliant mind at work on unsolvable, often existential problems, the poet always peering outward, toward a landscape of autobiography and memory that 'goes on all night, dotted with little fires.'" --Kevin Prufer, author of National Anthem "[In a Landscape] functions as an extended monologue of varied pitch and range in which the speaker is less concerned with results and technical prowess than the process of speaking (and living) itself ... Gallaher's charm and wit, and the project's breadth, will woo readers." --Publishers Weekly "Like Whitman, Gallaher celebrates his vast incomprehension of the material world, no matter how big or how small, from Bob the Builder to John Cage, even as he ambulates to map the mind's terrain, unsure if the two remain as visibly distinct as traffic lights or stars in space... If you're looking for answers, Gallaher's not going to give them to you. If you're looking for questions, you've just stumbled on something great." --Common Good Books
Table of ContentsCONTENTS I “Are you happy?” That’s a good place to start, or maybe, II “Ghosts are people who think III It appears that we’re living, which isn’t always the case, depending IV Now the scene changes, we say, and the next few years V Offers of help most often just end up complicating matters. That’s been VI What’s the most earnest you’ve ever been? Perhaps this VII “Changes that are characteristic of a living room VIII Are we on the right track? Should it have been IX “What would you like?” the waitress asks. And really, X The earth, friends, is doing fine. We’re the ones in danger, XI We do, as we say, what had to be done. The way things XII Roman numerals don’t do much for people XIII How many people haven’t you married, that you thought XIV I don’t know why, but for some reason I just forgot XV It’s a nice idea, to think we might have no effect XVI The early bird might get the worm, but the early person XVII In another sense, we’re foreign to each other. We say XVIII “All animals have interests,” I’m reading in an overview XIX It’s our Indian Summer weekend, coming up. XX The prompt is that you’re supposed to imagine XXI In heaven, according to Kurt Vonnegut’s XXII “When Yer Twenty-Two” is an early song XXIII One of the best things about life XXIV Is being aware of our limitlessness XXV To review, I’m thinking that cataloging XXVI What does it mean to be useful? To be a useful person? XXVII “There are flowers in the dirt XXVIII “It changes you,” they say about a lot of different things, XXIX “The idea just came to me one day,” or, better, XXX I’ve just been invited to read “A Book of Truths XXXI Whenever I see the Roman Numeral XXX XXXII The other night we drove downtown and something was on fire XXXIII All faces tend to have a permanent expression, XXXIV If things contain their opposites, why bother? That suffices, I guess, XXXV Do you do these things, or do these things do you? It’s the same old XXXVI What year, what moment was it, when all the television aerials XXXVII I think “getting out of the way” is a great way to be helpful XXXVIII Wherever I get to, someone’s there. It’s a busy place, XXXIX “And every one of us, a kitten XL Four of us are here at the moment. Will this XLI If only you could burn memories in a little pile XLII I changed my mind. I was stopping, XLIII What Social Security means to me is that if I continue working XLIV “Is our ability to have confidence in another owing more to others XLV Life gives us numerous opportunities XLVI Answer the question with a Yes or No. Indeed. Because XLVII Where’s the fun in doing something you already know how XLVIII What is the reason for harboring ill-will toward another? XLIX The college mascot is visiting the elementary school. It’s L “L” for landscape, where all of us are having different LI “Be proud of who you are LII None of these things is ever quite it. In much LIII “Have you had a good life?” Good question. In the grand scheme LIV Where’s the line between what constitutes repetition LV Looking at each other just now, which is the intrusion: LVI The landscape is on fire, and where are you LVII There are stories we don’t tell, for whatever reason. Mostly LVIII Richard’s back, talking about Easy Riders and Raging Bulls, LIX Most things aren’t necessary. So? Are we LX Improving our circumstances has been a stalled idea LXI I want a house with a lot of windows, and all the windows LXII Is your life the series of events LXIII Why not love pictures? Each time they come back, LXIV When one studies math, they say that what’s important LXV Tonight’s program is Clandestinophilia, insisting LXVI On the airline, I sat next to the woman with the young child, LXVII Is there anything that isn’t hit or miss? After the believing game LXVIII There’s always a point at which each of us says LXIX The new thing. There’s always got to be one, because LXX What does a person need, finally? What, specifically, LXXI Kings, they say, need reminding, but I don’t think so, at least
