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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781888996425 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Red Hen Press |
| Publication date: | 10/22/2019 |
| Edition description: | 2nd ed. |
| Pages: | 88 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.20(d) |
About the Author
https://www.williamtrowbridge.net/
The former Poet Laureate of Missouri, William Trowbridge is the author of seven full poetry collections and five chapbooks. His poems have appeared in more than thirty-five anthologies and textbooks, as well as in numerous publications including The Writer’s Almanac, and American Life in Poetry, and his awards include an Academy of American Poets Prize, a Pushcart Prize, a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference scholarship, a Camber Press Poetry Chapbook Award, and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Ragdale, Yaddo, and the Anderson Center. He lives in the Kansas City area, where he teaches in the University of Nebraska Low-residency MFA in Writing Program.
https://www.williamtrowbridge.net/
The former Poet Laureate of Missouri, William Trowbridge is the author of seven full poetry collections and five chapbooks. His poems have appeared in more than thirty-five anthologies and textbooks, as well as in numerous publications including The Writer’s Almanac, and American Life in Poetry, and his awards include an Academy of American Poets Prize, a Pushcart Prize, a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference scholarship, a Camber Press Poetry Chapbook Award, and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Ragdale, Yaddo, and the Anderson Center. He lives in the Kansas City area, where he teaches in the University of Nebraska Low-residency MFA in Writing Program.
https://www.williamtrowbridge.net/
The former Poet Laureate of Missouri, William Trowbridge is the author of seven full poetry collections and five chapbooks. His poems have appeared in more than thirty-five anthologies and textbooks, as well as in numerous publications including The Writer’s Almanac, and American Life in Poetry, and his awards include an Academy of American Poets Prize, a Pushcart Prize, a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference scholarship, a Camber Press Poetry Chapbook Award, and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Ragdale, Yaddo, and the Anderson Center. He lives in the Kansas City area, where he teaches in the University of Nebraska Low-residency MFA in Writing Program.
https://www.williamtrowbridge.net/
The former Poet Laureate of Missouri, William Trowbridge is the author of seven full poetry collections and five chapbooks. His poems have appeared in more than thirty-five anthologies and textbooks, as well as in numerous publications including The Writer’s Almanac, and American Life in Poetry, and his awards include an Academy of American Poets Prize, a Pushcart Prize, a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference scholarship, a Camber Press Poetry Chapbook Award, and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Ragdale, Yaddo, and the Anderson Center. He lives in the Kansas City area, where he teaches in the University of Nebraska Low-residency MFA in Writing Program.
https://www.williamtrowbridge.net/
The former Poet Laureate of Missouri, William Trowbridge is the author of seven full poetry collections and five chapbooks. His poems have appeared in more than thirty-five anthologies and textbooks, as well as in numerous publications including The Writer’s Almanac, and American Life in Poetry, and his awards include an Academy of American Poets Prize, a Pushcart Prize, a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference scholarship, a Camber Press Poetry Chapbook Award, and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Ragdale, Yaddo, and the Anderson Center. He lives in the Kansas City area, where he teaches in the University of Nebraska Low-residency MFA in Writing Program.
https://www.williamtrowbridge.net/
Tim Mayer is an artist working from Omaha, Nebraska. He has contributed art to projects such as The Anywhere Man, Midnight Circus, and Prophetica. He also teaches for the Art of Imagination program at the Ollie Webb Center.
Read an Excerpt
OLDGUY: SUPERHERO’S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
To Superman, I bequeath my Kryptonite-resistant Jockeys. To Batman, my denture grapple. To Wonder Woman, my silver Fitbit bracelets. To Captain America, my Kate Smith’s Greatest Hits. To Captain Atom, my copy of the Democritus Joke Book. To Spider Man, my Zap N Trap bug catcher. To Plastic Man, my Male Erecto. To Thing, some of my do-dads. To Aqua Man, my Depend Bed Protecters. To Ant Man, my plastic farm and display light. To Captain Marvel, my SHAZAM rupture truss. To Iron Man, my stool softener pills. To Death, my dead ass, ya bastard, and welcome to it.
OLDGUY: SUPERHERO VS. HIS NEMESIS II
Oldguy wakes up from a noonday snooze to find Death once more setting up his chess set, offering Oldguy the choice of white or black. “Black,” mutters Oldguy. “Revealing choice,” grins Death. “Means you’ve been depressed, as well you should be.” Reeling off a list of famous suicides—Socrates, Cleopatra, Dudu Topaz— Death says that he’d like to join the club if he didn’t have to be Death. He explains committing suicide would be like kissing himself on the forehead: impossible, though it would be a breeze for Oldguy, who says he couldn’t kiss himself that way either. “No,” says Death, “I meant a breeze to kill yourself.” He adds there’s a banquet of methods, many of them not all that painful or messy. “Why don’t you try shooting yourself in the forehead,” Oldguy suggests. Death counters that Death’s death is an ontological impossibility, that the kissing thing was just a metaphor. “How would you do it with a semaphore?” Oldguy asks. “I said ‘metaphor,’” snaps Death. “Maybe if you sharpened it . . .” says Oldguy. “No, no,” shouts Death. “Metaphor, METAPHOR!” “Still,” Oldguy continues, “that’d make quite a mess, what with the flag jamming things up.” Death declared he didn’t come all this way to talk about his goddamned suicide, that he didn’t ask for this shit job where everybody hates you and all you do is go around creeping people out, causing misery for no reason at all. “I could have been a dancer, if you’d like to know,” he sobs. “But ‘Dance of Death,’ right? Try to get an agent with that hanging around your neck.” He rakes the chess pieces into a bag, folds up his board, and clatters off. “How ’bout trying one of them plastic bags over your head,” Oldguy calls after him.