Description
Book SynopsisPoems reflecting the rich panoply of personal and public life in modern America, from the Poet Laureate of Illinois
Trade Review"Stein writes about ordinary objects in unremarkable lives—lawn mowers and Dodge pickups and TV sets and baseball caps—but upon that humble stuff, he sheds the golden radiance of close attention. His poems are delivered in everyday language, which means that when the epiphanies come, they pack a punch."--Chicago Tribune
"A self-deprecating societal evaluation that has a tendency to hug and butcher, with lightning word choices that ring seconds after the last of the thunder has been heard."--
Chicago Sun-Times"Many of Kevin Stein's poems hinge personal to social history, opening the private to the public and examining what connects and disconnects us. It's as if he wants to reside where the self meets the group, and discover there some sense of responsibility, of causal involvement with the world. He uses the focused moment of poetry to show how one life can speak to the condition of a country, and asks that we look critically at our involvement in the society we have made. This is a compelling and large-minded book."--Bob Hicok
Table of ContentsOne
Autumnal 3
Sufficiency of the Actual 5
On Being a Nielsen Family 7
(My) History of Parsley 8
September Falls Is No River's 10
News Crawl 11
Mars' Karma 12
Lives of the Painters 14
Middle-aged Adam's and Eve's Bedside Tables 16
Ike's Caddy 18
Talk Radio 23
Blue Tuesday 24
In Human Hands 26
Two
To Balance 31
Postcard to Henry James 33
Capitalism 34
A Day's Work 36
Song of the Night Shift Foreman 38
On Thinking of the Second Time They Sholved Up Mr. Lincoln 40
Pre-Bowdlerized Version of Poem for a Fourth-Grade Illinois History Text 43
CR5115STD Responds to the National Consumer Survey 45
Post-Feminist Machismo 47
Poet's Genie 48
Parakeet and Dark Star 49
Mowing the Lawn 50
Three Appetites Early and Other 53
Aesthetics of Desire 55
Natural Selection 58
Religion 60
Upon the Porch Swing's Time Machine 61
To My Hair 63
Lovesong Ending with ( ) 65
At the Mountain Man Rendezvous in Fairplay, Colorado 67
Inverse Aviary in which Birds Talk 69
On Reading
Prince Valiant in the Sunday Comics 71
Slippery Slope 73
Colonialism 74
Parable of the American Stag Party 76
Arts of Joy 78
Youthful Indiscretions 79
