Wisconsin Death Trip
My new chapbook, Wisconsin Death Trip, is now available for preorder.
This book is 3+ years in the making. In the spring and summer of 2017, I wrote the first few poems, and mapped out several others, for a chapbook I planned on calling Wisconsin Death Trip. (Yes, I am aware there is already both a book and a film by that same name; the connection is purposeful.) After a while, I got distracted by other projects, decided that WDT wasn't that great an idea anyhow, and that the poems I'd already written for it could fit in a different, full-length manuscript I was working on. Then, earlier this year, I realized two things: 1. The full-length manuscript I'd been collecting stuff for had gotten bloated and convoluted; there were so many themes and moods in it that would probably do better broken up into one full-length + two chapbooks, or three chapbooks, or, well, you get the idea. 2. Though I was no longer officially "working on" WDT, I had never really stopped writing poems for it, and that a number of poems I'd written since the summer of '17 would work perfectly with the topics and feelings I wanted to portray in it, and oh wait! It was meant to be a chapbook after all! So I collected the poems I'd already written that best fit the theme, and wrote a few new ones that I'd mapped out early on and thought were essential to bringing the rest of them together.
And so, here it is, three years later. Copies will ship out in early August, and digital copies will be available then as well, because one of the poems in it is forthcoming in Half Mystic at the end of July. (And for a limited time, every copy comes with a WDT pin, the design of which was inspired by the KHCP logo.) Also: if you don’t yet have a copy of The Loneliest Show On Earth, I’m currently offering a deal where you can get both for $32, including S&H. (This is within the U.S. only, as otherwise shipping costs are too high.) Ordering both separately, you'd wind up spending close to $40 total. Anyway, if you want to order both, you can PayPal me $32. Be sure to include your address, and also let me know if you want one or both books signed (and if so, let me know if you'd like some kind of salutation, or just my signature).
People have already said some really nice things about it, which you can read on the official book page, along with a couple small excerpts.
Speaking of excerpts...a couple other poems from it were supposed to be forthcoming in a different journal this week. Sadly, the journal folded before that issue was released. So I'm giving you one of those poems here, instead. This is where the connection to the other Wisconsin Death Trip(s) becomes apparent. (CW for disease, suicide, and infant death.)
Here in Black River Falls
Bury me awful and perverse. Bury me paralyzed and destroyed. Bury me the youngest before the oldest. Bury me in grief, in guilt. In a lily white gown, symbolic. In a lily white gown, inhuman. In a lily white gown, mad with grief and remorse. Here in Black River Falls, the wife committed suicide by cutting her throat. Here in Black River Falls, she had been deranged. Here in Black River Falls, she arose from her bed and ran through the woods. Here in Black River Falls, the wife of a farmer drowned her three children. Here in Black River Falls, devils pursue her. Bury me housewife. Poor. Bury me addicted to smoking. Bury-me-widow. Bury me acute mania. Bury me; two members of the same family on the same day. Bury me epidemic. Bury me, a bright and lovely child. Bury me, another little mound of earth. In a lily white gown, she killed her six month old baby with strychnine. In a lily white gown, she secured her husband’s razor and cut her throat. In a lily white gown, the child cried without stopping. Death was caused by a broken heart. Here in Black River Falls. She committed suicide by eating the heads of four boxes of matches—here in Black River Falls. She was only sixteen. Here in Black River Falls, a woman was found wandering the streets with a dead baby in her arms. She not knowing it was dead. Here in Black River Falls, bury me. Little baby in its coffin. Bury me, baby. Eyes closed. Bury me. In a lily white gown, she gave birth. In a lily white gown, illegitimate. Here in Black River Falls, choked (it) to death. Here in Black River Falls: the old women jumped down wells. Here in Black River Falls: the mothers carried their children into rivers, fed them arsenic and strychnine. Here in Black River Falls, the women purified and punished themselves with kerosene and matches. Bury me in return for being a woman and bearing children. Bury me, fatal epidemic disease. Bury me grotesque and sudden. In a lily white gown with a florid public obituary. Here in Black River Falls, death seemed inevitable.
(This is a found poem made by juxtaposing lines from Wisconsin Death Trip by Michael Lesy with the line Bury me in a lily white gown, here in Black River Falls from the Reverend Glasseye song “Black River Falls.")
While putting this chapbook together and preparing for its release, I thought about how there are so many more poems I could've written for it. I realized I'll never be done writing about Wisconsin. I’ve lived here, on-and-off, for more of my life than I’ve ever lived in any other state. And though for a good decade and a half I resisted letting it be my home, it became that, anyway. There are many other places that feel like home to me (places I’ve lived, and ones I’ve only visited), but Wisconsin is Home.
And yesterday, driving on the freeway between Kenosha & Racine, I looked to my left and saw a billboard for a restaurant offering deep fried cheese curds. Then I looked to my right and saw that I was passing over Kraut Road. And it was a poem about Wisconsin.