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IN A LANDSCAPE: 'you've just stumbled on something great'

9781938160516-frontcover John Gallaher's In a Landscape is featured in Common Good Book's new electronic newsletter! According to CGB, Gallaher's new book "is more than aware of its artifice, and thus, its voice. Like Whitman, Gallaher celebrates his vast incomprehension of the material world, no matter how big or how small, from Bob the Builder to John Cage, even as he ambulates to map the mind's terrain, unsure if the two remain as visibly distinct as traffic lights or stars in space. . . . Each line like a rake here is unruly in its combing of a private logic and errant trajectory, as if in search of a sanative grammar; a better word than doubt to call our present tense by name. Fortunately, Gallaher can't help or stop himself from ultimately worshipping our greatest fear: unknowns." A recent review from the Center for Literary Publishing compares In a Landscape to "the paradox Schrödinger expresses in his thought experiment with the cat." And just as Schrödinger's cat is simultaneously alive and dead until observed, reviewer Drew Webster says, "the book is, at once, a poem and not a poem." This is an attempt, says the review, to lead the reader to ask questions. "The first words of the book are 'Are you happy?,'" which contributes to Webster's idea that the work is "relentlessly self-reflexive," leading to more questions than answers. "If you’re looking for answers, Gallaher’s not going to give them to you. If you’re looking for questions, you’ve just stumbled on something great." Click here for the new electronic newsletter from Common Good Books. Click here to read the full review from the Center for Literary Publishing. In a Landscape is available for purchase at the BOA Bookstore. April is National Poetry Month! Now through April 30, get FREE SHIPPING on any BOA Bookstore order(s)! Because we love poetry, and we love you.
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