Orphan, Indiana

by David Dodd Lee

Orphan, Indiana is a collection of spontaneous outbursts framed by reticence and the guiding mania of the subconscious. Profane and poignant, accidental-seeming but soaring with satirical intent, David Dodd Lee's poems capture a verisimilitude that's phenomenological, and yet of the moment.

Genres: Poetry

72 pages, Paperback

First published November 11, 2010

About the author

David Dodd Lee has published nine full-length books of poems and a chapbook. His newest book is a second book of Ashbery erasure poems, And Others, Vaguer Presences (BlazeVox, 2016). His first was Sky Booths in the Breath Somewhere, the Ashbery Erasure Poems (BlaxeVox 2010).He is also the author of Animalties (Four Way, 2014), The Coldest Winter on Earth (Marick Press, 2012), The Nervous Filaments (Four Way Books 2010), and Orphan, Indiana (University of Akron Press 2010), as well Abrupt Rural (New Issues), which was published in 2004. Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The Nation, West Branch,Jacket, Gulf Coast, Blackbird, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Pool, Denver Quarterly, Slope, Pleiades, Laurel Review, Nerve, and Massachusett's Review. He was the editor of the annual poetry and fiction anthology, SHADE, published by Four Way Books. Lee is also the publisher of Half Moon Bay poetry chapbooks, which include titles by Franz Wright and Hugh Seidman. In the past he has served as poetry editor at Third Coast and Passages North. He has worked as a park ranger, a fisheries technician, and a journalist. He received the MFA degree in 1993, after taking a BFA in painting and Art History in the eighties. He teaches creative writing and visual art at Indiana University South Bend.

Reviews

[Kyle Muntz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extremely difficult book, pretty deeply in the territory of experimental poetics (even more than Lee's other books really). It's also brilliant, and breaks in a lot of ways with the other stuff of his I've read. Not to mention the intensity never lets up. It's not something I would try to interpret (other than that it deals very generally with the poetry of self, place and experience) but the language speaks for itself.

[John Burroughs · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book, as I do all of David Dodd Lee's work. So much to relish in it. A particular favorite here is "Poem Written in May."

[Brian Beatty · Rating 4 out of 5]

The language at work (and play) here is familiar enough, yet can still be unsettling in fresh contexts. Fans of poets Joe Wenderoth and Donald Revell will find a lot here to appreciate.

[Dearwassily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw somewhere someone suggested Dodd Lee’s poetry was similar to Frank Stanford’s. I see a slight resemblance, perhaps.