{"product_id":"pearly-everlasting","title":"Pearly Everlasting","description":"In \u003ci\u003ePearly Everlasting,\u003c\/i\u003e Thomas Reiter crafts authentic lives, both autobiographical and fictional, historical and contemporary, across a wide range of locales, maintaining a steady focus on the lore of occupations while revealing the speakers' crucial connection to the natural world. These poems come in earthtones- the colors of strenuous labor; dried flowers from a midwestern prairie; a centuries-old bone newly uncovered; the surf and sky, gold and coral deposits, of the West Indies; the pure soul of a freshly thawed stream; and pepperbush, Indian pipes, yellow gorse, anemones, pearly everlasting, spoken as lovingly as children's names.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough a rich mix of lyrical and narrative forms, Reiter honors hard livelihoods that demand concentration of mind and muscle- Oregon Trail pioneers, farmers, railroad workers, natives and early colonists in the Caribbean, coal miners: \"\"Where else would boys from slagtip valleys \/ go but into the mines of Wales?\"\" The physicality and technique honed by seasoned whalers, however, contrast with the younger generation's skills: \"\"Our sons all work in tourist hotels. \/ Tell me where is the memory in that.\"\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMemory and the past, real or imagined, are palpable in Reiter's verse and often align in a kind of double exposure with the present.\"\" At his window in the Stonehill Home \/ my grandfather invites me to watch \/ the prairie horizon, looking past \/ wheat fields and silos to where \/ once again it's 1887 \/ and a man is trampled unyoking oxen.\"\" And resonating through the poems are botanical details, gritty and convincing, never ready-made or sentimental. In \u003ci\u003ePearly Everlasting,\u003c\/i\u003e flora can be as close and important as family members, with a long-distance reach in emotion and significance: \"\"My mind fills with rootings, annuals \/ and perennials, their stems moving \/ through furniture, tools, utensils, \/ their blossoms crowding under sailcloth \/ so I can hardly breathe \/ or cry out, I am Esther Pennell, \/ or see the Trail happening before me \/ in its penitence of yokes.\"\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor Reiter as well as his poems' personae, self-awareness becomes a matter of discovery, passion, and a finely wrought wisdom: \"\"If a riverbed over time \/ changes by oxbow and undercut, \/ where am I now? . . . \/ My weight is nothing. I'm here \/ for the time the river gives me.","brand":"Louisiana State University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55807353848152,"sku":"9780807125434","price":19.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9780807125434.jpg?v=1778016621","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/pearly-everlasting","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}