The Great State of Alaska and other Strange Myths

The new issue of Notre Dame Review is fresh from the presses, featuring my narrative poem, "The Great State of Alaska" and a lyric of meditation, "On a Picture Frame."  We are a few years out, but both of these will occupy central positions in my third full-length collection of poems.  The last poems for my second full-length collection will be appearing in magazines in the coming months, and then the editing begins.

​Click the picture to visit the NDR home page.  A few lines from the first poem:

    When we signed up to take a week-long cruise,
Docking in scenic ports along the coast of
The Great State of Alaska, our friends cooed
With that peculiar kind of awe and envy
Which skips ahead a few weeks to the future,
Not to see angels coming at the world’s end,
But feeling, almost, the steam of a spa,
The expert grip, both firm and gentle, as
The manicurist refines each nail and smooths
Fingers grown stubbed and raw in winter air.
    “You’re going to love it,” my friend Baxter said,
“Maybe you’ll see a bear.  You’ll see a bear.”
My wife’s great aunt, a veteran in such matters,
Advised that we could keep aboard the ship
Even in port to savor the buffets.