The Roswell Poems - Softcover

Rane Arroyo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 160226001X ISBN 13: 9781602260016

Publisher: WordFarm, 2008

Synopsis

In July 1947, cowboy-rancher Mac Brazel found crash debris from an apparent UFO in the New Mexico desert. His chance discovery transformed the quiet town of Roswell into ground zero for theories of government conspiracy, space alien sightings and science versus religion debates. When another crash site was found nearby and reported to have yielded nonhuman remains, the frenzy intensified.

Now Rane Arroyo (author of How to Name a Hurricane and The Portable Famine) mines the famous Roswell event to describe human experience in the twenty-first century. His poetic sequence includes couplets, lyrical dramatic monologues, chatroom messages, sonnets and imaginary film trailers all born of a common mythic moment but wandering far and away from that genesis. The stories he tells of Roswell become a new kind of mystery play in which everyone may particpate as believers, critics or spectacle devotees. Something important happened in this obscure town something that is still with us today. But what?

"The Roswell Poems is Americana at its most beautiful and bizarre," says Barbara Hamby, author of Delirium and Babel.

"To read this book is to be abducted in heart-shaking and beautiful ways," says Susan Deer Cloud, recipient of the 2007 NEA Literature Fellowship and author of The Last Ceremony.

About this title

About the Author:

Rane Arroyo (Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh) began his writing career as a performance artist. He is also a playwright, fiction writer and poet. He teaches creative writing at the University of Toledo and serves on the Board of Directors for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP). Arroyo's work has earned several awards, including the John Ciardi Poetry Prize, the Carl Sandburg Poetry Prize, an Ohio Arts Council Award for Excellence in Poetry, a Pushcart Prize and the Hart Crane Poetry Prize.

Review:

The Roswell Poems is Americana at its most beautiful and bizarre. --Barbara Hamby, author of Delirium and Babel

To read this book is to be abducted in heart-shaking and beautiful ways. --Susan Deer Cloud, recipient of the 2007 NEA Literature Fellowship and author of The Last Ceremony

What happened in Roswell takes on 21st-century political significance in Rane Arroyo's newest and most accomplished work, and reminds us that 'logic/ (is) a dreamer with holes in its pockets' and that 'mystery is/ one of the names that God wears.' --Kathy Fagan, author of The Charm and MOVING & ST RAGE

The Roswell Poems is Americana at its most beautiful and bizarre. --Barbara Hamby, author of Delirium and Babel

To read this book is to be abducted in heart-shaking and beautiful ways. --Susan Deer Cloud, recipient of the 2007 NEA Literature Fellowship and author of The Last Ceremony

About this edition

• Publisher: WordFarm
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 160226001X
• ISBN 13: 9781602260016
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 71