One afternoon when poet John Leax was standing in a grocery store checkout line, a tabloid news headline beckoned: "Leaping Turtles Invade US." As he looked more closely at the accompanying image, two lines sprang into his imagination: "Suppose one could believe the tabloid headlines. Suppose the stories under them were true." Leax later wrote that “true story.” Then he wrote another. And another. They are all collected in Tabloid News, his fourth book of poems. As he wrote, Leax explored two linked impulses that he found in the tabloids: desire and fear. We desire connection to beings other than ourselves. Yet we fear what we do not know—what is alien or different from us. In poems like “Baby Born with Antlers,” “Dog Makes $60 Million Modeling” and “Duck Hunters Shoot Angel,” Leax grapples with this conflict between desire and fear humorously, chillingly, poignantly and artfully. If you've ever been attracted—or repelled—by a tabloid news headline, these poems are for you.
John Leax (pronunciation: leks) is professor of English and poet-in-residence at Houghton College in Houghton, New York. His articles, fiction and poems have been widely published in anthologies and in periodicals such as Image, The Christian Century, The Other Side, The Cresset, The Reformed Journal, Christianity Today, ASLE, Christianity and Literature, Radix, Cold Mountain Review and Midwest Quarterly.
His books of poetry include Reaching into Silence (1974), The Task of Adam (1985) and Country Labors (1991). His novel, Nightwatch, was published in 1989. And his non-fiction works include In Season and Out (1985), Standing Ground (1991) and Out Walking (2000). Grace Is Where I Live, published originally in 1993, was reissued in a revised and expanded edition by WordFarm in 2004.
Leax gives several readings and lectures each year at various colleges, libraries and conferences. He has read at Calvin College, Concordia College, Nyack College, The Kings College, Asbury Theological Seminary, Gordon College, St. Joseph's College, SUNY Buffalo and others. He has been featured as a panelist and seminar leader at Calvin College's biannual Festival of Faith & Writing.
He is a member of the Conference on Christianity and Literature, The Chrysostom Society, The Orion Society, The Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment and the Nature Conservancy.
