In 2021, five years after the death of his wife, poet C.D. Wright, poet Forrest Gander began to walk sections of the San Andreas Fault from north to south. Accompanied by a recent immigrant, Ashwini Bhat, he eventually found himself in Barstow, California, where he’d been born. It was more than a hometown; he describes how his mother’s enthusiasm for the washes and canyons of Rainbow Basin led in an almost direct line to his own interest in geology (and a degree and a career before poetry).
That early experience and his own background in geology led to an intense interest in landscape, an interest reflected across many if not most of his writings. And it’s fully reflected in Mojave Ghost: A Novel Poem (2024). The ghost of the title, he says, refers to his mother; he can’t help seeing the landscape of the Mojave Desert through his mother’s eyes.
To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.
Some Thursday Readings
John Niehardt’s Epic ‘Cycle of the West’ – video by Andrew Bensn Brown at Society of Classical Poets.
The Draft Horse – poem by Robert Frost at The Imaginative Conservative.
“The Touch of the Masters Hand,” poem by Myra Brooks Welch – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.
“Epic,” poem by Patrick Kavanaugh – Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.
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