Love in the City of Grudges

by Will Nixon

From the book:

One Night in Kingman, Arizona

On the bungalow motel's cave like stucco ceiling
lizards ran loose. A black-and-white RCA made
this evening's train wreck look like vintage history.
But we'd seen it for ourselves beyond city limits:
freight cars toppled down track embankments,
still coupled on their sides. Belly smoke rose
to shroud the moon, a coal-faced monk pondering
the damage. Small fires burned beside the tracks,
as if gypsies camped to scavenge after daybreak.
Chickens soldiered through our low beams
toward desert blackness. Defying cruiser tops
spinning red, we stoked our hash bowl, knowing
we'd never see such sights again. We'd heard
radio preachers warn the sky itself would burn.
Nothing shown on TV later could tame this land.

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

"Love in the City of Grudges," my latest poetry book, ranges from suburban childhood to youthful longings and misadventures in gentrifying Hoboken in the 1980s, from an escape to Catskills log cabin to Night of the Living Dead as family history. "We're embarrassed to smile, but page after page we do," wrote the poet Djelloul Marbrook, who blogged about the book at http://www.djelloulmarbrook.com/2010/.... Susan Deer Cloud said these poems conjure up "a WASP Odysseus from Connecticut sailing into America's nightmare hinterlands" and praised the "heroic, ironic, bittersweet, sexy elegance of language." The publisher's website is http://foothillspublishing.com/2010/i.... "My Late Mother as a Ruffed Grouse" was my previous poetry book.

"Walking Woodstock: Journeys into the Wild Heart of America's Most Famous Small Town" by Michael Perkins and myself began as columns for the Woodstock Times and became the #1 paperback bestseller of 2009 at the Golden Notebook, our beloved independent bookstore. The publishers website is http://shop.thetroybookmakers.com. Or visit http://bushwhackbooks.com.

Reviews

[Brent · Rating 5 out of 5]

funnysad sculpted poemstories full of horrorpathos at the unlikely intersection of hobokensuburbs, familyzombies, & love