In this version of rural American life, Kevin Chesser's poems wrangle with sobriety and take joy in old films. They seek alternative names for love and hope. Where else would you find pigs strutting in low-waisted jeans, dammed rivers shaping the setting for a late-night encounter, or a man called Smoke who dissolves as quickly as his namesake? In this second collection by Chesser, wildly slanted truths assemble into heartbreaking and funny poems, and the journey pops like a lucid dream that startles and awakens readers. His is a new and vivid American voice.
