The Lightning That Strikes the Neighbors' House

by Nick Lantz

Nick Lantz explores the transformative power of tragic and miraculous experiences, through these poems that illuminate near misses of tragedy and transcendence. His gaze is both roving and microscopic—the Challenger explosion, Bigfoot, a love letter written from inside a missile silo, a mother naming and re-naming a family’s short-lived pets, and a plea for post-9/11 redemption. Lantz never lets his subjects or his readers off the hook, plunging head first into worlds that are both eccentric and familiar, alarming and hopeful.

Finalist, Foreword Magazine’s Poetry Book of the Year

Genres: Poetry

66 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Nick Lantz is the author of Graywolf title We Don't Know We Don't Know and a second collection, The Lightning That Strikes the Neighbors House, which won the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

"

Reviews

[Ashly Johnson]

I was left stunned after finishing many of these poems! It is so rare to find a poet who really speaks to your soul and this collection definitely did that for me. Amazing imagery and just astounding use of language.

I don't even know the proper words to describe how great this work is! Will definitely be seeking out more Lantz.

[C]

Lantz likes to tie together many different ideas in the creation of a single poem. He leaps without segue from SETI to cowboys. Lines like, "I am the field where thieves / bury gold / they will not live to recover." The whole world is thematically linked, lucidly and at times brutally.

What else? I am not a reviewer. I am writing this review because no one else has reviewed this book yet. Also, I once had a dance class with his wife.

I am buying this book because it is dense and I need to read it many times and perhaps write in it.

In some ways, he reminds me strongly of Joel Brouwer, circa "Exactly What Happened."

End.

[Sienna]

I wouldn't characterize Lantz's poetry as particularly dark, or melancholy, or even acerbic — though his wit can and does take a bite out of life from time to time — but sometimes the violence of individual lines is shocking. Thoughtfully and without malice, he destroys as easily as he creates. It's a rare quality in a poet. Nature and nurture battle in "Conditional" when he asks, "If you had been born to different parents, / would your stomach still / be cratered with cigarette burns?" In "Collective," the difference between globe and page, our understanding of the relationship between the two, is made explicit: "But don't forget that when the map is folded, / our country touches theirs, face / against face."

Lantz frequently juxtaposes the seemingly unrelated in subsequent lines or stanzas, forcing the reader into a delicate dance. From "The Cricket in the Basement": "The tethered dog / rubs his circle of lawn raw. God showed Moses / the land that he would never / be allowed to enter." Back up, re-read, pause, repeat and only continue once you've felt that little shift in your grey matter. And then get ready for it to happen all over again.

There are fewer straightforward narrative poems than in We Don't Know We Don't Know; most of these, I suspect, will require multiple readings to get, really get, although this statement also misleads because there's an immediacy to certain lines and images that hooks you in, makes you not only willing to work but eager. Look, "Arc Welding Lesson" blinds with brightness:

How can you say that if,
given a chance,
you would not touch

her, quite? You would hold
your fingertips motionless

above her skin and wait
for some spark to cross

the gap between you?

It deafens with silence:

If you could listen
to what the radio listens to
when the radio is turned off,

it would be that sound.

(It burdens you with knowledge and then offers to bear the brunt of the weight.)

Divided into three sections, The Lightning That Strikes the Neighbors' House addresses newspaper headlines, celestial hopes (SETI) and hopes smashed (Challenger), divine visions in shower curtains and toast, vacations and afterlives in national parks, penny-pinching, cryptozoologists at the prom, even a reference to that terrible movie Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken, you know, the one with the Depression-era diving horses that both thrilled and disturbed you. It's rich and varied and unexpected.

The longest of the bunch, "History of Fire" and "The Last Words of Pancho Villa," pack quite a wallop, heart-wrenching and hilarious and, above all, true. And then there's "Portmanterrorism," which begs to be read out loud and giggled over with loved ones. Surely we must have known that Jazzercise, appletinis and turduckens would lead to anticipointment and crisitunities. Lantz also tackles the madness of our lives and lifestyles in "Teach a Man to Fish" and "The Year We Blew Up the Whale — Florence, Oregon" and, actually, most of these poems, because it turns out that we're never far from it. Best to realize that, to accept it, bear witness to the beauty and ugliness of wry reality, and live. For Lantz, thankfully, living means writing.

[C]

This one really surprised me. Recently hit a Barnes and Noble (yeah, I love supporting the small local bookstore, but when I drive somewhere with a B&N, there's a certain excitement to going through aisles that packed with books) and picked this one off of the shelf, never having heard of Lantz. Not sure what called me to it, but I am so glad that I found this book.

It is a fantastic collection - reminds me of the quiet narratives of Levis or Fairchild mixed with an experimental tinge (just a hint, but enough to really set it apart from their voices).

I cannot wait to read more from this fantastic poet. And I can't wait to reread this amazing collection.

[Matt Athanasiou]

I want his ideas. Poems to read and reread.

[Eric Mueller]

Another amazing piece of work. I hope Lantz is able to withstand the test of time, so future generations will be able to marvel at this collection the same way I have.