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Falling somewhere between a "diary-poem," a "daybook," "autobiography-in-verse," and an "essay-poem," In a Landscape is noted poet and critic John Gallaher's most personal, straightforward, and revealing book yet. In lyric-prose that continuously circles the questions it raises, Gallaher sloughs off the garb of "poet" to address life questions in a way that few poets of his generation have been willing to risk. Family, death, adoption, children, parents, high school, music . . . Gallaher's subjects carry weight because of their absolute commonness.
John Gallaher is assistant professor of English at Northwest Missouri State University, and co-editor of the Laurel Review.
Price: $16.00
Pages: 128
Publisher: BOA Editions Ltd.
Imprint: BOA Editions Ltd.
Publication Date:
14 October 2014
Trim Size: 9.00 X 7.00 in
ISBN: 9781938160509
Format: Paperback
BISACs:
"Like all curious and worried (not neurotic) artists, Gallaher would rather communicate psychically ... but like all of us he has to use words. You can feel it in his sentences, that if you were to actually talk to him he would probably say 'you know??' a lot. I think it's because we all 'do know,' we just don't know until someone triggers that thing which is the nerve ending that travels to the subconscious and PING! So yeah, maybe I was wrong ... Gallaher is not a writer or a poet, he is a psychic using words to trick us."
—Wayne Coyne, The Flaming Lips
“I have long considered John Gallaher to be one of the most thought-provoking poets of his generation, and In a Landscape is his best book yet. These poems are fidgety and sneaky—engaged with a world of characters, traffic, memories, and perception. But just beneath their deceptively playful surfaces lies real urgency, as Gallaher grapples with the instability of the recollected past, the nature of mortality, and the impossibility of truly knowing the intentions of others. Reading these poems is like listening in on the thoughts of a brilliant mind at work on unsolvable, often existential problems, the poet always peering outward, toward a landscape of autobiography and memory that ‘goes on all night, dotted with little fires.’”
—Kevin Prufer, author of National Anthem
"[In a Landscape] functions as an extended monologue of varied pitch and range in which the speaker is less concerned with results and technical prowess than the process of speaking (and living) itself . . . Gallaher’s charm and wit, and the project’s breadth, will woo readers."
—Publishers Weekly
"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. . . . 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."
—Common Good Books
—Wayne Coyne, The Flaming Lips
“I have long considered John Gallaher to be one of the most thought-provoking poets of his generation, and In a Landscape is his best book yet. These poems are fidgety and sneaky—engaged with a world of characters, traffic, memories, and perception. But just beneath their deceptively playful surfaces lies real urgency, as Gallaher grapples with the instability of the recollected past, the nature of mortality, and the impossibility of truly knowing the intentions of others. Reading these poems is like listening in on the thoughts of a brilliant mind at work on unsolvable, often existential problems, the poet always peering outward, toward a landscape of autobiography and memory that ‘goes on all night, dotted with little fires.’”
—Kevin Prufer, author of National Anthem
"[In a Landscape] functions as an extended monologue of varied pitch and range in which the speaker is less concerned with results and technical prowess than the process of speaking (and living) itself . . . Gallaher’s charm and wit, and the project’s breadth, will woo readers."
—Publishers Weekly
"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. . . . 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."
—Common Good Books
John Gallaher is the author of The Little Book of Guesses (2007, Four Way Books), winner of the Levis Poetry Prize, Map of the Folded World (2009, University of Akron Press), and co-author, with G.C. Waldrep, of Your Father on the Train of Ghosts (2011, BOA Editions). His poetry appears widely in such places as The Boston Review, Crazyhorse, Field, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, and Westbranch, and in anthologies including The Best American Poetry. Gallaher is currently associate professor of English at Northwest Missouri State University, and co-editor of The Laurel Review.
CONTENTS
I “Are you happy?” That’s a good place to start, or maybe,
II “Ghosts are people who think
III It appears that we’re living, which isn’t always the case, depending
IV Now the scene changes, we say, and the next few years
V Offers of help most often just end up complicating matters. That’s been
VI What’s the most earnest you’ve ever been? Perhaps this
VII “Changes that are characteristic of a living room
VIII Are we on the right track? Should it have been
IX “What would you like?” the waitress asks. And really,
X The earth, friends, is doing fine. We’re the ones in danger,
XI We do, as we say, what had to be done. The way things
XII Roman numerals don’t do much for people
XIII How many people haven’t you married, that you thought
XIV I don’t know why, but for some reason I just forgot
XV It’s a nice idea, to think we might have no effect
XVI The early bird might get the worm, but the early person
XVII In another sense, we’re foreign to each other. We say
XVIII “All animals have interests,” I’m reading in an overview
XIX It’s our Indian Summer weekend, coming up.
XX The prompt is that you’re supposed to imagine
XXI In heaven, according to Kurt Vonnegut’s
XXII “When Yer Twenty-Two” is an early song
XXIII One of the best things about life
XXIV Is being aware of our limitlessness
XXV To review, I’m thinking that cataloging
XXVI What does it mean to be useful? To be a useful person?
XXVII “There are flowers in the dirt
XXVIII “It changes you,” they say about a lot of different things,
XXIX “The idea just came to me one day,” or, better,
XXX I’ve just been invited to read “A Book of Truths
XXXI Whenever I see the Roman Numeral XXX
XXXII The other night we drove downtown and something was on fire
XXXIII All faces tend to have a permanent expression,
XXXIV If things contain their opposites, why bother? That suffices, I guess,
XXXV Do you do these things, or do these things do you? It’s the same old
XXXVI What year, what moment was it, when all the television aerials
XXXVII I think “getting out of the way” is a great way to be helpful
XXXVIII Wherever I get to, someone’s there. It’s a busy place,
XXXIX “And every one of us, a kitten
XL Four of us are here at the moment. Will this
XLI If only you could burn memories in a little pile
XLII I changed my mind. I was stopping,
XLIII What Social Security means to me is that if I continue working
XLIV “Is our ability to have confidence in another owing more to others
XLV Life gives us numerous opportunities
XLVI Answer the question with a Yes or No. Indeed. Because
XLVII Where’s the fun in doing something you already know how
XLVIII What is the reason for harboring ill-will toward another?
XLIX The college mascot is visiting the elementary school. It’s
L “L” for landscape, where all of us are having different
LI “Be proud of who you are
LII None of these things is ever quite it. In much
LIII “Have you had a good life?” Good question. In the grand scheme
LIV Where’s the line between what constitutes repetition
LV Looking at each other just now, which is the intrusion:
LVI The landscape is on fire, and where are you
LVII There are stories we don’t tell, for whatever reason. Mostly
LVIII Richard’s back, talking about Easy Riders and Raging Bulls,
LIX Most things aren’t necessary. So? Are we
LX Improving our circumstances has been a stalled idea
LXI I want a house with a lot of windows, and all the windows
LXII Is your life the series of events
LXIII Why not love pictures? Each time they come back,
LXIV When one studies math, they say that what’s important
LXV Tonight’s program is Clandestinophilia, insisting
LXVI On the airline, I sat next to the woman with the young child,
LXVII Is there anything that isn’t hit or miss? After the believing game
LXVIII There’s always a point at which each of us says
LXIX The new thing. There’s always got to be one, because
LXX What does a person need, finally? What, specifically,
LXXI Kings, they say, need reminding, but I don’t think so, at least
I “Are you happy?” That’s a good place to start, or maybe,
II “Ghosts are people who think
III It appears that we’re living, which isn’t always the case, depending
IV Now the scene changes, we say, and the next few years
V Offers of help most often just end up complicating matters. That’s been
VI What’s the most earnest you’ve ever been? Perhaps this
VII “Changes that are characteristic of a living room
VIII Are we on the right track? Should it have been
IX “What would you like?” the waitress asks. And really,
X The earth, friends, is doing fine. We’re the ones in danger,
XI We do, as we say, what had to be done. The way things
XII Roman numerals don’t do much for people
XIII How many people haven’t you married, that you thought
XIV I don’t know why, but for some reason I just forgot
XV It’s a nice idea, to think we might have no effect
XVI The early bird might get the worm, but the early person
XVII In another sense, we’re foreign to each other. We say
XVIII “All animals have interests,” I’m reading in an overview
XIX It’s our Indian Summer weekend, coming up.
XX The prompt is that you’re supposed to imagine
XXI In heaven, according to Kurt Vonnegut’s
XXII “When Yer Twenty-Two” is an early song
XXIII One of the best things about life
XXIV Is being aware of our limitlessness
XXV To review, I’m thinking that cataloging
XXVI What does it mean to be useful? To be a useful person?
XXVII “There are flowers in the dirt
XXVIII “It changes you,” they say about a lot of different things,
XXIX “The idea just came to me one day,” or, better,
XXX I’ve just been invited to read “A Book of Truths
XXXI Whenever I see the Roman Numeral XXX
XXXII The other night we drove downtown and something was on fire
XXXIII All faces tend to have a permanent expression,
XXXIV If things contain their opposites, why bother? That suffices, I guess,
XXXV Do you do these things, or do these things do you? It’s the same old
XXXVI What year, what moment was it, when all the television aerials
XXXVII I think “getting out of the way” is a great way to be helpful
XXXVIII Wherever I get to, someone’s there. It’s a busy place,
XXXIX “And every one of us, a kitten
XL Four of us are here at the moment. Will this
XLI If only you could burn memories in a little pile
XLII I changed my mind. I was stopping,
XLIII What Social Security means to me is that if I continue working
XLIV “Is our ability to have confidence in another owing more to others
XLV Life gives us numerous opportunities
XLVI Answer the question with a Yes or No. Indeed. Because
XLVII Where’s the fun in doing something you already know how
XLVIII What is the reason for harboring ill-will toward another?
XLIX The college mascot is visiting the elementary school. It’s
L “L” for landscape, where all of us are having different
LI “Be proud of who you are
LII None of these things is ever quite it. In much
LIII “Have you had a good life?” Good question. In the grand scheme
LIV Where’s the line between what constitutes repetition
LV Looking at each other just now, which is the intrusion:
LVI The landscape is on fire, and where are you
LVII There are stories we don’t tell, for whatever reason. Mostly
LVIII Richard’s back, talking about Easy Riders and Raging Bulls,
LIX Most things aren’t necessary. So? Are we
LX Improving our circumstances has been a stalled idea
LXI I want a house with a lot of windows, and all the windows
LXII Is your life the series of events
LXIII Why not love pictures? Each time they come back,
LXIV When one studies math, they say that what’s important
LXV Tonight’s program is Clandestinophilia, insisting
LXVI On the airline, I sat next to the woman with the young child,
LXVII Is there anything that isn’t hit or miss? After the believing game
LXVIII There’s always a point at which each of us says
LXIX The new thing. There’s always got to be one, because
LXX What does a person need, finally? What, specifically,
LXXI Kings, they say, need reminding, but I don’t think so, at least