Synopsis
"These poems are filled with a sane, decent, clear-eyed melancholy. The world, and our life, has limits, and we reach them. 'These things that weigh me down. . . I’ll have to start giving away.' That’s Mark Vinz’s great gift to readers: memories of rooms, people, landscapes loved and named with clarity and affection, interior travels where the past finds wisdom in clouds, grass, kitchens, backroads." --Bill Holm From the first moment of storm cloud in the first poem of Long Distance, to the face of the moon out the window at the end of the book, it is clear that Mark Vinz is in and of this great rolling middle of America. He knows and loves this place and these people he has lived among, these backroads, the mementos, the omens and the emblems of our lives. ... the quickest routes, the name of every crop in those mysterious fields, and where to find the best cafes. ... and somewhere in those darkening hills and rain, lights are coming on, the ones I still can't see but know are there. And yet, as one must if he is truly to own his home place, Vinz is able to travel, imaginatively and in fact, as he does in the "Tour Guide" section of the book, to the British Isles and mainland Europe. Travel is a mirror which allows us to see ourselves "and whatever else we can only begin to imagine."
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About the Author
Mark Vinz was born in Rugby, North Dakota, grew up in Minneapolis and the Kansas City area, attended the Universities of Kansas and New Mexico, and since 1968 has taught at Minnesota State University Moorhead, where he also served as the first coordinator of the university's Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, and he is the author of six chapbook collections of poems as well as the full length collections Climbing the Stairs, Mixed Blessings, Late Night Calls (prose poems), Minnesota Gothic, and Affinities (the last two in collaboration with photographer Wayne Gudmundson). He edited the poetry journal Dacotah Territory during the 70s and since then has been editor for Dacotah Territory Press, which has published a number of short collections by writers in the region. He is also the co-editor of several anthologies, including Common Ground: A Gathering of Poems on Rural Life; Beyond Borders: New Writing from Manitoba, Minnesota, Saskatchewan, and the Dakotas; Inheriting the Land: Contemporary Voices from the Midwest; Imagining Home: Writing from the Midwest; The Party Train: An Anthology of North American Prose Poetry; and The Talking of Hands: Unpublished Writing by New Rivers Press Authors. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in poetry, he has also won the New Rivers Press Minnesota Voices competition, Milkweed Editions’ “Seeing Double” competition, six Pen Syndicated Fiction awards, and three Minnesota Book Awards. In the spring of 2005, Larry Woiwode named him an Associate Poet Laureate of North Dakota.
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Long Distance: Poems
Seller: Aamstar Bookshop / Hooked On Books, Colorado Springs, CO, U.S.A.
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Soft cover. Condition: As New. B poetry Vinz: This copy is inscribed by the author to Dave (Mason) former Colorado poet laureate. White spine, black title. Signed by Author(s). Seller Inventory # Jan2-22-7
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LONG DISTANCE
Seller: Magers and Quinn Booksellers, Minneapolis, MN, U.S.A.
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paperback. Condition: Very Good. May have light to moderate shelf wear and/or a remainder mark. Complete. Clean pages. Seller Inventory # 1282804
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Long Distance: Poems
Seller: Solr Books, Lincolnwood, IL, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: very_good. This books is in Very good condition. There may be a few flaws like shelf wear and some light wear. Seller Inventory # BCV.0974649929.VG