American Purgatory

by REBECCA GAYLE HOWELL

Overview

Poetry. Winner of the 2016 Sexton Prize for Poetry (selected by Don Share of Poetry magazine), AMERICAN PURGATORY is a story of the working class, a dystopia set in a near-future United States marked by severe drought, herbicidal warfare, and a totalitarian climate of poverty. This purgatory is populated by those who believe that if they work hard enough, they will be set free. Against this backdrop, three unlikely characters begin a journey that will take them away from work, belief, and even each other, until the protagonist uncovers a truth about this place that indeed sets her free. Equal parts Dante and Cormac McCarthy, AMERICAN PURGATORY is a coming-of-age for capitalism written in the decade of tea-party terror.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781911335443
Publisher:	Continental Sales, Inc.
Publication date:	02/10/2017
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	58
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Rebecca Gayle Howell is the author of AMERICAN PURGATORY (Eyewear Publishing, 2017) and RENDER/AN APOCALYPSE (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2013) and the translator of Amal al-Jubouri's HAGAR BEFORE THE OCCUPATION/HAGAR AFTER THE OCCUPATION. Her work has received wide critical acclaim. Native to Kentucky, Howell is a senior editor for the Oxford American.

Table of Contents

It's Like This 11

Map #1 Bird's Eye View 13

We Do Not Know What We Do Not Know 14

Every Job Has a First Day 15

I'm Covered in it Right Now 16

I'll Spare You the Details 17

Same Song Second Verse 18

Try To See No Evil 19

Map #2 Detail of Town 20

You Can't Tell the Truth 21

Seeing is Believing 22

Believing is Seeing 23

It's All the Same 24

The Risk is There Is No Risk 25

Grackles, to Be Sure 26

A Shift is Opening 27

I Want the Sundown Work 28

To Be Fair 29

Destroy All the Places 30

O Mercy Me 31

Try To Hear No Evil 32

Map #3 Detail of the Fields 33

What Goes Around 34

Get It in Your Sight 35

No One, Not Even One 36

Who, Then 37

When You're Wrong You're Wrong 38

Only Hell Hath No Limits 39

Try to Speak No Evil 40

Let Us Make Man in Our Image 41

After Our Likeness 42

And Let Him Have Dominion 43

Over Every Creeping Thing 44

Map #4 Detail of Slade's Heart 45

Map #5 Detail of Little's Heart 46

Map #6 Detail of My Heart 47

Pleasure Don't Quit 48

Hell Is Empty 49

The Economics Will Satisfy 50

Die When You Die 51

Something's Coming But Never Does 52

Who Shall Inherit 53

Nobody's Dead 54

Map #7 Detail of Extraction 55

Everyone Was Born Here 56

Acknowledgements 59