What do you think?
Rate this book
The Dirt Riddles: Poems
This powerful first collection and winner of the inaugural $5,000 Miller Williams Poetry Prize is literally rooted in the earth and in the world of animal husbandry.
You can taste these poems about life on a family dairy farm in your mouth. In these lyrical poems we meet a closeted young man, his parents, their herd, and the other flora, fauna, and objects that populate his surreal garden.
You can taste these poems about life on a family dairy farm in your mouth. In these lyrical poems we meet a closeted young man, his parents, their herd, and the other flora, fauna, and objects that populate his surreal garden.
- GenresPoetry
74 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
About the author
Michael Walsh
3 books6 followersMichael Walsh is an independent scholar, editor, poet and fiction writer. His full-length poetry collections include The Dirt Riddles (University of Arkansas Press) and Creep Love (Autumn House Press). He is also the author of two letterpress chapbooks: Adam Walking the Garden and Sleepwalks (both from Red Dragonfly Press). His short stories about rural gay life have appeared in journals such as Great River Review, North Dakota Quarterly and the anthology Fiction on a Stick (Milkweed Editions). In addition, he's the editor of the poetry anthology Queer Nature, forthcoming from Autumn House Press. He lives in the Driftless region of southwest Wisconsin.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 6, 2018
I met this poet while I was at AWP, because he is a longtime friend of my colleague. So I had to read his poems for National Poetry Month, obviously.
These poems hold a fair amount of farm nostalgia, but it is more the kind of what happens when life is slow and you notice things others never see. While I enjoyed the quiet reflection of those moments, I was more intrigued by the poems that mentioned people, with their stories between the lines.
Poems that stuck out to me:
Mud, Apples, Milk
"...I miss their udders too,
the mud fresh as wax
on the swollen skin.
Each day I broke the seals
with hot rags, and milk
flooded my palm - ..."
Wind
"If you sprint fast enough,
the corn runs with you,
whole rows quick on their roots..."
Food Chain
A Table Prayer
(ode to manure!)
Weekly Horoscope
(it's just wonderful but I don't want to post the whole thing and that's what you need to get it)
Evening Milkings
(because of this line and the anger inside of it: "...the one who will kick him tonight...")
On Kissing My Husband at a Gas Station
"The warm, uncomfortable spot
shifts between my shoulder blades..."
(yes! that's exactly where people glare!)
Wish
"When I kiss him, weed sour
and tomato green..."
These poems hold a fair amount of farm nostalgia, but it is more the kind of what happens when life is slow and you notice things others never see. While I enjoyed the quiet reflection of those moments, I was more intrigued by the poems that mentioned people, with their stories between the lines.
Poems that stuck out to me:
Mud, Apples, Milk
"...I miss their udders too,
the mud fresh as wax
on the swollen skin.
Each day I broke the seals
with hot rags, and milk
flooded my palm - ..."
Wind
"If you sprint fast enough,
the corn runs with you,
whole rows quick on their roots..."
Food Chain
A Table Prayer
(ode to manure!)
Weekly Horoscope
(it's just wonderful but I don't want to post the whole thing and that's what you need to get it)
Evening Milkings
(because of this line and the anger inside of it: "...the one who will kick him tonight...")
On Kissing My Husband at a Gas Station
"The warm, uncomfortable spot
shifts between my shoulder blades..."
(yes! that's exactly where people glare!)
Wish
"When I kiss him, weed sour
and tomato green..."
July 9, 2010
The Dirt Riddles, poems by Michael Walsh
Winner of the 2010 Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize
The Dirt Riddles is a sober and quiet reflection on rural life, composed by Michael Walsh. The poems highlight many of the themes of agrarian life: the constant attendance to the sky, the soil, and the wind as well as the more routine chores of keeping the home place in order. There is a solitary feel to the poems, a reflection on the inner mood rather than the outside. In fact, reading these feels like eavesdropping...hearing a quiet voice observe and evaluate their surroundings unsuppressed by inhibitions. And yet, these aren't sullen or gloomy either. The introspective voice is aware, calm, and natural. There are no awkward metaphors or complicated allusions. The simplicity is deceiving.
From the larger animals down to insects, Walsh shows an acuity to every detail. No living thing escapes his notice, and even inanimate objects merit interest. Things we consider traditionally beautiful may be mentioned, but it is Walsh's ability to note the beauty of rust, electricity, wind, gravel dust, even the rot in the core of an apple that make this collection unusual.
With very few words, Walsh describes different facets of a father figure, one who is rigid and angry, yet runs into a burning house to save his childhood comic books. In "Paper Flesh" he describes him:
He couldn't leave these stacks behind.
But the bright covers were already half-cooked,
dark as negatives, heroes and villains
singed indistinguishable.
One favorite, still on the father theme, was "After his lessons from the belt":
my mother would always sit on the bed
and spread out the great map
of his fault lines - that webwork
of unpredictable tensions.
We studied where the quakes
were most likely to occur: in barns, fields,
near sheds.
We learned to sense the shifting,
the slow grind of plates, the opening
chasms of his hands.
And "Wind"
If you sprint fast enough,
the corn runs with you,
whole rows quick on their roots.
Slow down and they jog
calm and breathless.
Stop and they turn
to walls. Hands on knees,
you pant, and all the leaves,
like wings, beat wildly.
It's the attention to simple details and the juxtaposition of unusual elements that makes this collection really enjoyable, even relaxing, to read. Without getting maudlin or political, there's a sense of how the increasing loss of the farming life and the family farm in our lifetimes has left a void in our consciousness in the last century.
Winner of the 2010 Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize
The Dirt Riddles is a sober and quiet reflection on rural life, composed by Michael Walsh. The poems highlight many of the themes of agrarian life: the constant attendance to the sky, the soil, and the wind as well as the more routine chores of keeping the home place in order. There is a solitary feel to the poems, a reflection on the inner mood rather than the outside. In fact, reading these feels like eavesdropping...hearing a quiet voice observe and evaluate their surroundings unsuppressed by inhibitions. And yet, these aren't sullen or gloomy either. The introspective voice is aware, calm, and natural. There are no awkward metaphors or complicated allusions. The simplicity is deceiving.
From the larger animals down to insects, Walsh shows an acuity to every detail. No living thing escapes his notice, and even inanimate objects merit interest. Things we consider traditionally beautiful may be mentioned, but it is Walsh's ability to note the beauty of rust, electricity, wind, gravel dust, even the rot in the core of an apple that make this collection unusual.
With very few words, Walsh describes different facets of a father figure, one who is rigid and angry, yet runs into a burning house to save his childhood comic books. In "Paper Flesh" he describes him:
He couldn't leave these stacks behind.
But the bright covers were already half-cooked,
dark as negatives, heroes and villains
singed indistinguishable.
One favorite, still on the father theme, was "After his lessons from the belt":
my mother would always sit on the bed
and spread out the great map
of his fault lines - that webwork
of unpredictable tensions.
We studied where the quakes
were most likely to occur: in barns, fields,
near sheds.
We learned to sense the shifting,
the slow grind of plates, the opening
chasms of his hands.
And "Wind"
If you sprint fast enough,
the corn runs with you,
whole rows quick on their roots.
Slow down and they jog
calm and breathless.
Stop and they turn
to walls. Hands on knees,
you pant, and all the leaves,
like wings, beat wildly.
It's the attention to simple details and the juxtaposition of unusual elements that makes this collection really enjoyable, even relaxing, to read. Without getting maudlin or political, there's a sense of how the increasing loss of the farming life and the family farm in our lifetimes has left a void in our consciousness in the last century.
June 1, 2017
Native, Burlesque, Newspapers from 1929, and Pinup were my favorite poems in this collection.
October 2, 2019
Finally finished the last few poems - sometimes hard to read, but always lovely.
February 9, 2013
Tight, restricted. A fixed gaze at a singular landscape, which reminds me of Thomas Bolt’s Out of the Woods. Some interesting, persuasive similes and metaphors born out of Walsh’s fidelity to motif. A greater thematic movement, an expansion, would have elevated the collection to a whole new level.
December 31, 2010
Lovely.
March 13, 2011
These are sensuous, gritty poems about family, sexuality, and rural life.
August 14, 2014
A stark, but beautiful collection of poetry that explores farm life as well as being gay in the rural world. Wonderful read, and I am sorry that I didn't discover Walsh's work sooner.
April 11, 2011
My students loved it! A fresh look at rural life.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews