Poem of the Week | July 28, 2014

This week we offer another poem from our new issue, 37.2. Andrew Grace is the author of three books of poems, most recently Sancta published in 2012 by Ahsahta Press. Sections of his manuscript-in-progress The Last Will and Testament of Said Gun are forthcoming in The New Yorker, Kenyon Review, Shenandoah, 32 Poems and Poet Lore. Other work is forthcoming from the Southwest Review, Passages North and the Cortland Review.
 
Author’s note:

This poem is part of a larger persona project in which the character of Said Gun is essentially telling his autobiography. He is elderly (I want his age to be indeterminate, but to seem impossibly old), and thoroughly Midwestern. In fact, as he tells the story of his life I hope to be telling a parallel history of the American prairie. Said Gun, as his name suggests, has a criminal past, from selling moonshine to being a peeping tom, and also has an unwavering belief in the sublimity of the Midwest’s landscape (especially its many forms of ugliness). This poem finds him reflecting on his own voice, imagining that his poems are living things out in the fields that surround him.