These poems speak to the various ways we exile ourselves from a paradise that is available at any given moment. A young girl practicing flute on the end of a pier, furniture repair, an ancient shark tooth, the deaths of friends—these are some of Makuck’s subjects. His short lyrics and long narratives vary from comic to elegiac, often finding their locus in the landscapes of coastal North Carolina.

Peter Makuck is a distinguished professor of arts and sciences at East Carolina University and edits Tar River Poetry. He has published six previous collections of poetry and received the Zoe Kincaid Brockman Award for the best collection of poetry by a North Carolinian. He lives on Bogue Banks in North Carolina’s barrier islands.