Overview
Winner of the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize, Jackson Holbertās Winter Stranger is a solemn record of addiction and the divided affections we hold for the landscapes that shape us.
In the cold, seminal countryside of eastern Washington, a boy puts a bullet through his skull in a high school parking lot. An uncle crushes oxycodone into āa thousand red granules.ā Hawks wheel above a dark, indifferent river. āI left that town / forever,ā Holbert writes, but its bruises appear everywhere, in dreams of violent men and small stars, the ghosts of friends and pills. These poems incite a complex emotional discourse on what it means to leaveāif itās ever actually possible, or if our roots only grow longer to accommodate the distance.
Punctuated by recollections of loved ones consumed by their addictions, Winter Stranger also questions the capricious nature of memory, and poetryās power to tame it. āI can make it all sound so beautiful. / Youāll barely notice that underneath / this poem there is a body / decaying into the American ground.ā Meanwhile, the precious realities vanishāāyour hair, your ears, your hands.āāleaving behind āthe fucked up / trees,ā the ālong, cold river.ā In verse both bleak and wishful, Holbert strikes a fine balance between his poetic sensibilities and the endemic cynicism of modern life.
āIt is clear now that there are no ends,ā Holbert writes, āJust winters.ā Though his poems bloom from hills heavy with springtime snow, his voice cuts through the cold, rich with dearly familiar longings: to not be alone, to honor our origins, to survive them.
This book title, Winter Stranger (Poems), ISBN: 9781639550418, by Jackson Holbert, published by Milkweed Editions (June 13, 2023) is available in hardcover. Our minimum order quantity is 25 copies. All standard bulk book orders ship FREE in the continental USA and delivered in 4-10 business days.
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