William Trowbridge’s Put This On, Please: New and Selected Poems contains work from all five of his full collections, as well as a group of new poems. In lines that capture the rhythms of everyday speech (with the ghost of meter haunting closely along), Trowbridge follows misfits and outcasts whose ramblings and shamblings reflect our own well-meaning gropes for fulfillment. These reader-friendly poems draw often from classic films and other elements of popular culture—from Buster Keaton to Chuck Berry, from King Kong to Wile E. Coyote. Trowbridge is not squeamish about exploring the darker side of humanity, as in poems about the Kiss of Death, delivered by Michael Corleone in The Godfather II, or Nebraskan mass murderer Charles Starkweather. Capping off the book, a group of new poems takes a fresh look at old themes, sounding deepened notes of both melancholy and celebration. Throughout this seriocomic account of human foibles, vices, and wonders, Trowbridge makes a strong case for laughter as the only appropriate response to our post-post-modern condition.
About the Author
William Trowbridge is the Poet Laureate of Missouri. He is the author of the poetry collections Ship of Fool, Enter Dark Stranger, O Paradise, Flickers, and The Complete Book of Kong, and the chapbooks The Packing House Cantata, The Four Seasons, and The Book of Kong. His poems have appeared in such periodicals as The Gettysburg Review, The Iowa Review, The Georgia Review, Poetry, Boulevard, and New Letters. He lives in the Kansas City area and teaches in the University of Nebraska s low-residency MFA program.
Product Specifications
Published by Red Hen Press, March, 2014. Paperback, 203 pages.
