Rough Day Format: Paperback

"Ed Skoog is a master of mischief and misdirection...I find a unique alchemy in this book: a deep sadness combined with a broad humor, and most of all a sense that I'm being allowed to see a poet watching himself in the midst of evolving, captured in motion like a series of time-lapse photographs." —Susan Cohen, Prairie Schooner

Composed during long walks throughout Washington, DC, and careful to err on the side of recklessness, Rough Day finds its essential unity in a fixation on American events and landscapes—from Yellowstone and New Orleans to Kansas and the Pacific Northwest. Throughout, Ed Skoog maintains an openness to discovery that unveils rare and prismatic views into his country.

A native of Topeka, Kansas, Ed Skoog's first book of poetry, Mister Skylight (Copper Canyon Press), was published in 2009. His poetry has appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, and The Paris Review. He teaches at the University of Montana and lives in Missoula, Montana

Ed Skoog: Ed Skoog was born in Topeka, Kansas, and earned his MFA at the University of Montana. His first book, Mister Skylight (Copper Canyon), was published in 2009. His poetry has appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, and Ploughshares, among other publications, and earned the Poetry Society of America's Lyric Poetry Award, the Faulkner's Marble Faun Prize in Poetry, a fellowship with Bread Loaf, and residencies with George Washington University and the Richard Hugo House. He lives in Seattle, Washington.