Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
In Michael Earl Craig’s sixth book, poems resonate with an inscrutable logic that feels excitedly otherworldly and unsettlingly familiar.
Whether he is writing about the cadaver that Hans Holbein the Younger used as a model, Montana as the “Italy of God,” or the milking rituals in Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow, Iggy Horse is a book that articulates the sadness and strangeness of American life with the poetic observations of true satire.
"Craig is in a league of his own, and not just because he’s a farrier who thinks about the sides of horses as much as he thinks about the sound of words."
–Jesse Nathan, McSweeney's
"The poems in Iggy Horse have a crispness to them, and the poems hold echoes of elements one might also see in the works of Canadian poets Stephen Brockwell and Stuart Ross: a slight narrative distance, as the nebulous narrators of each poem slowly form as each poem unfolds."
–Rob McClennan, Rob McClennan's Blog
Michael Earl Craig is from Dayton, Ohio, home of the gas mask and the mood ring. He is the author of Woods and Clouds Interchangeable (Wave Books, 2019), Talkativeness (Wave Books, 2014), Thin Kimono (Wave Books, 2010), Yes, Master (Fence Books, 2006), Can You Relax in My House, (Fence Books, 2002), and the chapbook Jombang Jet (Factory Hollow Press, 2012). He lives in the Shields Valley, near Livingston, Montana, where he runs a full-time farrier practice. He was the 2015-2017 Poet Laureate of Montana.
1
THE TRAIN
PREPARING FOR SLEEP
THE GHOSTS OF CASTLE OWLS PASTFIRMAMENTS
SHELTER IN PLACE
END TIMES
PEP TALK TO SELF EATING SALAD AT AIRPORT
THE RETURN OF STANISLAUS
CANDLESNUFFER
IT WAS ABOUT TO RAIN
PREPARING TO PAINT THE BODY OF THE DEAD CHRIST IN THE TOMB
CUBES OF ICE CLINKING
DOCTOR FAUCI
CHOCOLATE SANTA
SOMEWHERE OVER GREENLAND
THE SALESMAN HAD TWO BAGSUNDERFOOT
2
COWBOY & PIRATE
FIELD TRIP
AN ARM MOVING QUICKLY THROUGH A COAT SLEEVE LINED WITH TAFFETA
SPRINGTIME IN HORSE COUNTRY
SPREZZATURA
PORTRAIT OF THE WRITER MAX HERRMANN-NEISSE
DRIVING HOME
CALF WORSHIP
CLOSING TIME
THE BED OF THE PHLEGMON
SAINT FINBAR’S, BURBANK
MARIKO AOKI PHENOMENON
RECOLLECTION
THE RED MITTEN
EVERYONE KNEW HER AS MARSHA
THE HONEYMOON
THE BELL IN AN OAK
3
THE HALF-PACKED SUITCASE
FIRST COW
I WANTED TO SAY
IT WAS TOO LATE
CHEMISTRY
DANCE FLOOR
STANDING AT THE WINDOW
IGGY HORSE
WAITING
I’M ASKING
BEACH SOUNDS
POEM ATTEMPTING TO DESCRIBE AN EMOTIONAL CRISIS
JEEPERS
THE WISHING WELL
WALLACE STEVENS HESITATING BEFORE AN EVENING PLAYING BRIDGE
WALKING ALONG THE TIBER