Here is the voice of a young writer whose connection with the Nebraska Sandhills rings vibrant and true. And here is an eye that sees the remarkable clarity. "A sparrow perches// on the leg of an upturned milkstool." Yes. "...she chewed sunflower/ seeds and spit the shells/ at my boots." Again, yes. Ben Gotschall's poems are free verse that sings, and each song is a tribute to the land no less than to those who serve as its caretakers-father, mother, sister, grandparents, and especially his brother Marcus, whose skill and commitment as a calf roper are extensions of his family history. And it is our family history also, because Gotschall's treatment of the Sandhills embodies the complex environments of innocence, initiation, passion, and death, universal subjects he treats as surely as his brother handles a rope-with undaunted honesty and grace. -- William Kloefkorn The poems in Benjamin Gotschall's elegiac debut collection, Where it Happened, are deeply rooted in a language of place, of work, and of a rough-hewn life. The vision here is direct and unflinching as it measures loss and takes stock of what is left. Gotschall is a poet who knows well the possibility of poetry to "find, gather [and] replace what we've lost in vivid, reverent words." -- Natasha Trethewey
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4.0 out of 5 stars
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This review is from: WHERE IT HAPPENED (Paperback)
I am from the Sandhills myself, and in fact grew up only 45 miles from the author and have heard the names of the people included in his work. On a personal level, this is some of the best of the best. Honest and candid, sometimes brutal, sometimes beautiful. This describes the Sandhills and this book, and I look forward to hearing more from Ben Gotshall.
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