My first book of poetry. These were mostly composed in 2014-2015; a few revised before republication in 2016. The mood was political. Some of the poems from that period that I rejected for this volume struck me as too strongly condemnatory, pieces of the moment, that I didn’t like well enough coming back to them after several months. Nutshell is slim, but meaty, 48 pages total.
Contents
Give Away the Key
The Structure We Believe
Again
Accept the Change
Over a Five Cent Item
Salvage and Tag
The Comfrey Plant
The Political Tick
Carpet Linters
Hogs in a Row
Bones and Claws
Canned Peas
If On the Other Hand
It Is All One
Handle with Care
Purpose No Secret
The Culture
The Culture II
The Culture: Prurience
Goods for Love
Let the Tide Run Its Course
Mourning Doves
Chum
Thud and Rebound
Newly Hatched
Tenterhooks
Noise
Stones You’ve Gathered
You Are Here
Never So Good
A Trick of Memory
The Face
The Moth
Nutshell
Elucidate
Stop It
From The Nutshell Hatches comes a new series, Jumping Off, where I take the last line, or part of it, from each of my first thirty-six poems, and make it the title of a new poem, with a certain thematic link.
Time and Place
Inifinte Fall
Fill It Up Again
Comfortingly
One Day the Rest
Sum of
The Earth Unseeded
And Crying
Hacked Back
This Game the Product
When I’m Not
The Hillside
From Superstition the Pendulum
I Could Not
Fog Bound
For the Gullible
Is Nothing
Entrée
The Good People
Distract Us
Why Not Let
Bears the Punishment
Dispel
Thought It Mattered
World On
Remains of Your Legacy
Adverse Possession
Any Random
Neither Do You
Even Heard
An Encounter
Haunts
Fortune’s Refugees
Away Like Dust
To Terms
Spread Your Arms
See Slides from this book on Beast page