Review
“Whether speaking for a maker of military uniforms or a prison guard, a wife writing to Walt Whitman about her husband’s failure or Jill of nursery rhyme fame, Mark Kraushaar has the uncanny ability to understand how precious identity and selfhood are to every one of us. One of his characters observes, ‘Long ago, before there was anything / there was nothing, except that every one was always / on their way. . .’ and it reads like a statement of faith in humanity. And though another speaks of the earth, as seen from a plane, as ‘wonderful, ridiculous, and sad,’ you finish this collection happy to know that Mark Kraushaar lives there.”—Mark Jarman
“A repertoire of good stories, and something of the visionary.”—Marilyn Nelson
“Generally triggered by something as deceptively simple as a small newspaper item, an overheard remark, or an incident observed in a bus station, Mark Kraushaar’s meditative/narrative poems illuminate moments of surreal reality by telling little stories of heartbreakingly human intent. I love these poems and am proud to have given several of them their first publication in the pages of The Gettysburg Review.”—Peter Stitt
About the Author
Mark Kraushaar is the recipient of Poetry Northwest’s Richard Hugo Award and two Wisconsin Arts Board awards for poetry and has been a finalist for both the Walt Whitman Award and the May Swenson Prize. His poems are widely published and have been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2006; Motion: American Sports Poems; Visiting Walt: Poems Inspired by the Life and Work of Walt Whitman; and Who Are the Rich and Where Do They Live.
