Yes, Master

by Craig, Michael Earl

• ISBN13: 9780977106462
• ISBN10: 0977106462
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-08-31
• Publisher: Fence Books

Summary

In his second book, Michael Earl Craig blurs the line between the documentary and imaginative impulses. The resulting poems mutilate pastoral myths--a man who has ignored horses his whole life but now wants to try touching one, or two gay donkeys and their uneventful lives on the high plains--but also pay tribute to the current-day West in which this author lives and writes. These poems sketch a slightly dented mental landscape touched by odd details and sharp mood swings, not to mention Junior Mints, Sonny Bono, and the new Pope in Prada sandals. They are superficially light and often comical, and objects frequently take center stage--a new and revered anvil, a black derby "soft as a colt's nose," a series of meticulously described wristwatches--but a social commentary unfurls. Characters in these poems bottom out now and again, dreaming of new or lost worlds, going off on rants or into deep sleeps, wanting desperately "to tell a story with the authority of mallets" but settling for "feeling like a turd washed up on the shore of a quiet lake."

Author Biography

MICHAEL EARL CRAIG is the author of Can You Relax in My House (2002, Fence Books). He was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio and educated at the Universities of Montana and Massachusetts. He currently lives near Livingston, Montana where he works as a farrier.

Table of Contents

I
This is How an Anvil Comes to You	1	(2)
Wonderful Hatchet	3	(1)
Piece	4	(1)
Invisible Cables	5	(3)
The Interview	8	(1)
Axiom	9	(2)
In the Januaried Mountains	11	(2)
Because of Roy	13	(1)
Master Chang and Student	14	(2)
Right Eye is Hampered	16	(1)
Two Hours After Beginning, the House is Finished	17	(1)
Gathering My Thoughts About You	18	(2)
Edward	20	(1)
Patron of the Buses	21	(2)
April	23	(1)
Poem	24	(1)
Surgery of the Soul	25	(4)
II
Seahorse	29	(2)
Glass of Vodka	31	(1)
Sabbatical	32	(2)
Albert Often Cracked His Knuckles	34	(2)
Acquaintance	36	(1)
It Was a White Box	37	(3)
We Picture the President	40	(1)
The Odor of Violets	41	(2)
Ways of Dealing	43	(2)
Notes on Robert Musil	45	(2)
Roy	47	(2)
Cavanaugh County	49	(1)
In a Gorgeous Hotel, in a Grand City	50	(1)
November Effort	51	(2)
Autobiography	53	(2)
The Interior	55	(1)
Something Frivolous and Beautiful	56	(5)
III
I Rattled off to Work Today	61	(1)
Old Glove	62	(1)
You Can't Always Lead a Mule to Water	63	(1)
I'll Fight Depression for You	64	(1)
Wednesday	65	(2)
I'm Glad I Found the Horse Doc	67	(1)
The Accomplished Hand	68	(2)
The Dog and the Horse	70	(1)
My Situation; a Confession; Some Hopes That I Have	71	(1)
Rabbit vs. Hawk	72	(1)
Special	73	(1)
Cookout	74	(2)
July Where I Live	76	(1)
Wash Your Hands Before You Grip the Block of Cheese	77	(2)
The Godmother	79	(1)
Prayer	80