Notice bibliographique
- Notice
Type(s) de contenu et mode(s) de consultation : Texte noté : sans médiation
Auteur(s) : Smith, Austin (1982-....)
Titre(s) : Flyover country [Texte imprimé] : poems / Austin Smith
Publication : Princeton ; Oxford : Princeton university press, copyright 2018
Description matérielle : 1 vol. (VIII-112 p.) ; 24 cm
Collection : Princeton series of contemporary poets
Lien à la collection : Princeton series of contemporary poets
Note(s) : Includes bibliographical references
Flyover Country is a powerful collection of poems about violence : the violence we
do to the land, to animals, to refugees, to the people of distant countries, and to
one another. Drawing on memories of his childhood on a dairy farm in Illinois, Austin
Smith explores the beauty and cruelty of rural life, challenging the idea that the
American Midwest is mere "flyover country," a place that deserves passing over. At
the same time, the collection suggests that America itself has become a flyover country,
carrying out drone strikes and surveillance abroad, locked in a state of perpetual
war that Americans seem helpless to stop. In these poems, midwestern barns and farmhouses
are linked to other lands and times as if by psychic tunnels. A poem about a barn
cat moving her kittens in the night because they have been discovered by a group of
boys resonates with a poem about the house in Amsterdam where Anne Frank and her family
hid from the Nazis. A poem beginning with a boy on a farmhouse porch idly swatting
flies ends with the image of people fleeing before a drone strike. A poem about a
barbwire fence suggests, if only metaphorically, the debate over immigration and borders.
Though at times a dark book, the collection closes with a poem titled "The Light at
the End," suggesting the possibility of redemption and forgiveness. Building on Smith's
reputation as an accessible and inventive poet with deep insights about rural America,
Flyover Country also draws profound connections between the Midwest and the wider
world
Identifiants, prix et caractéristiques : ISBN 069118156X. - ISBN 9780691181561. - ISBN 9780691181578. - ISBN 0691181578 (rel.)
Identifiant de la notice : ark:/12148/cb456943612
Notice n° :
FRBNF45694361
(notice reprise d'un réservoir extérieur)
Table des matières : To go to Lena -- ; I.. Into the corn -- ; Fences -- ; The raccoon tree -- ; Cat moving
kittens -- ; Beyond Mirror Lake -- ; The windbreak -- ; American glue factory -- ;
Chekhov -- ; Three radios -- ; Hired hands -- ; Water witching -- ; Apparition of
knives -- ; Scrapper Kevin -- ; The vampire -- ; Building a temple for the field mice
-- ; Father and son: Barcelona -- ; Grasshoppers -- ; Some haiku found scrawled in
the margins of The old farmer's almanac -- ; II.. The mechanic's children -- ; The
Shaker abecedarius -- ; The streets of Turn -- ; Outside the Anne Frank House -- ;
The crutches of Lourdes -- ; The only tavern in Hyde, Wisconsin -- ; The spider --
; Factory town -- ; Street performer: Asheville, North Carolina -- ; The bow -- ;
Cottonpicker -- ; Atomic fireball -- ; Soap operas -- ; The blind -- ; The bombing
of hospitals -- ; Wounded men seldom come home to die -- ; Elegy for Thomas Merton
-- ; Premature elegy for Claude Eatherly -- ; We defy augury -- ; The man without
oxen trembles -- ; Swatting flied -- ; That particular villages -- ; Drone -- ; The
witness tree. ; III.. Cicadas -- ; Flyover country -- ; White lie -- ; The capacity
of speech -- ; N Judah -- ; Break in the weather -- ; Dead dogs -- ; Growing cold
-- ; Lament of the man who picks up dead animals -- ; Country things -- ; Ode to flour
-- ; Things we don't often think of -- ; Film of the Building of a coffin viewed in
reverse -- ; The twain -- ; Feathers -- ; The light at the end.
