by
Tom Hansen
New
Poets of America Series
Winner
of the 4th Annual
A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize
With
an Introduction by Molly Peacock
Tom
Hansen's Falling to Earth was selected by judge Molly
Peacock from over 900 entries to BOA's 4th Annual A. Poulin, Jr.
Poetry Prize contest. Peacock writes in her introduction,
" A bemused, stoop-shouldered figure who is more than a mere speaker
- let's call him a protagonist - stalks the poems of Falling
to Earth . With candor and an almost grandiose simplicity,
Hansen describes the limitations of his middle-aged body and,
in so doing, the limitations of his enterprise in mid-life: the
gracelessness of survival. Falling to Earth is the journey
of a vibrant soul refreshing itself poem by poem."
Systole,
Diastole
In folders in files in offices
in the county courthouse in town
are pieces of paper on which we have plotted
to parcel this land among us:
Johnston and Shepard and Pentel and Williams
and Gajdan and Darrow
and Hansen.
My ranch. My timberland. Mine.
Deer and elk and mountain lion
and bobcat and coyote and eagle and hawk,
attendant spirits,
mere blood and bone,
roam this rock-ribbed hinterland
bristling with ponderous pines
or swim shifting currents above it.
Brookies and browns and rainbows hover
in icy streams plowing through it.
And one little ember of consciousness,
quietly fading to ash,
glides down deer trails and eases through fences
and stumbles upon a crime scene or altar.
A passionate congregation of flies
worships a carcass of wolf with no eyes.
A moldering log dreams itself green,
far out at sea and sinking.
Copyright © 2006 by BOA Editions
Available
editions:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-929918-75-1
Price: $14.95
Publishing Date: April 2006
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