Book
The poetry of strangers : what I learned traveling America with a typewriter
Edition
First edition.
Publication Information
New York : Harper Perennial, [2020]
Physical Description
289 pages ; 21 cm
Summary
In this collection of thematically and geographically linked essays, Brian Sonia-Wallace--a keen observer of the human condition and a poetry evangelist--travels across the US armed with only a typewriter to write poetry for strangers as he attempts to celebrate, eulogize, and potentially restore some of the most ubiquitous staples of Americana: the transcontinental railroad, the shopping mall, and music festivals, to name just a few. On his remarkable journey, Brian connects with fascinating American characters--those not typically covered by the mainstream media, but who instead connect with the readers of J.D. Vance, Robert Moor, and Rick Bragg. By capturing and linking these individuals and their stories through the poems Brian writes for them, Dust Bowl Nation speaks to our times and to an increasingly larger part of our populace who yearns to understand our changing cultural landscape.
Contents
- The first stranger
- Becoming the typewriter
- Railroad writer
- A poet at the mall
- Not in it for the music
- Drifters: interviews with Van Life poets
- The dreamer
- Self-proclaimed witches and deviants
- Document/ed
- Homecoming
- After the fire
- Mic or church?
- The story of us.