Mothman Apologia
This volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets explores love, grief, the opioid epidemic, and coming of age
 
“Elegiac and witty.”—Elisa Gabbert, New York Times, “The Best Poetry of 2022”
 
“These poems name the hurt wrought upon the meek that makes the elegy, here, as much an exaltation of the living as a mournful dirge for the land.”—Major Jackson, Vanderbilt University
 
The 116th volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, Robert Wood Lynn’s collection of poems explores the tensions of youth and the saturation points of knowledge: those moments when the acquisition of understanding overlaps with regret and becomes a desire to know less. Comprising poems of place set across the Virginias, this collection includes an episodic elegy exploring the opioid crisis in the Shenandoah Valley as well as a separate series of persona poems reimagining the Mothman (West Virginia’s famed cryptid) reluctantly coming of age in that state’s mountains and struggling with the utility of warnings. These are narrative poems of love and grief, built from a storytelling tradition. Taken together they form an arc encompassing the experience of growing up, looking away, and looking back.
1139899509
Mothman Apologia
This volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets explores love, grief, the opioid epidemic, and coming of age
 
“Elegiac and witty.”—Elisa Gabbert, New York Times, “The Best Poetry of 2022”
 
“These poems name the hurt wrought upon the meek that makes the elegy, here, as much an exaltation of the living as a mournful dirge for the land.”—Major Jackson, Vanderbilt University
 
The 116th volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, Robert Wood Lynn’s collection of poems explores the tensions of youth and the saturation points of knowledge: those moments when the acquisition of understanding overlaps with regret and becomes a desire to know less. Comprising poems of place set across the Virginias, this collection includes an episodic elegy exploring the opioid crisis in the Shenandoah Valley as well as a separate series of persona poems reimagining the Mothman (West Virginia’s famed cryptid) reluctantly coming of age in that state’s mountains and struggling with the utility of warnings. These are narrative poems of love and grief, built from a storytelling tradition. Taken together they form an arc encompassing the experience of growing up, looking away, and looking back.
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Mothman Apologia

Mothman Apologia

Mothman Apologia

Mothman Apologia

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Overview

This volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets explores love, grief, the opioid epidemic, and coming of age
 
“Elegiac and witty.”—Elisa Gabbert, New York Times, “The Best Poetry of 2022”
 
“These poems name the hurt wrought upon the meek that makes the elegy, here, as much an exaltation of the living as a mournful dirge for the land.”—Major Jackson, Vanderbilt University
 
The 116th volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, Robert Wood Lynn’s collection of poems explores the tensions of youth and the saturation points of knowledge: those moments when the acquisition of understanding overlaps with regret and becomes a desire to know less. Comprising poems of place set across the Virginias, this collection includes an episodic elegy exploring the opioid crisis in the Shenandoah Valley as well as a separate series of persona poems reimagining the Mothman (West Virginia’s famed cryptid) reluctantly coming of age in that state’s mountains and struggling with the utility of warnings. These are narrative poems of love and grief, built from a storytelling tradition. Taken together they form an arc encompassing the experience of growing up, looking away, and looking back.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780300261073
Publisher: Yale University Press
Publication date: 03/22/2022
Series: Yale Series of Younger Poets , #116
Pages: 120
Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.33(d)

About the Author

Robert Wood Lynn is a writer from Virginia. His work has appeared in Antioch Review, The Cincinnati Review, New Ohio Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and other journals. Rae Armantrout is the award-winning author of eighteen books of poetry, most recently Finalists, Conjure, and Wobble.

Table of Contents

Foreword Rae Armantrout xi

(The Mothman Gets High) 1

Part I

(The Mothman Googles Its Own Name) 5

First of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone 7

Second of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone 9

(The Mothman at Twelve) 11

Psalm for the Haters in the Back 13

Voicemail from My Mother 15

(The Mothman Pronounces Appalachia) 17

Third of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone 19

Fourth of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone 21

(The Mothman at the Psychiatrist's Office in the City) 23

It Was Time Again for Bushhogging the Paddock 25

Prayer for the Shitstains 27

(The Mothman Watches a TV Movie and Resolves to Steal the Declaration of Independence) 29

I Never Knew What They Meant by Flyover Country 31

The Best Shot in the House 33

Part II

(The Mothman Leaves the Used Car Lot Empty-Handed) 37

The Season We Danced Alone While Pumping Gas 39

Walking Blues Not Packaged for Individual Sale 41

(The Mothman Picks Up a Misdemeanor) 43

Fifth of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone 45

Sixth of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone 47

(The Mothman Dabbles in Etymology) 49

Coming To 51

I Remember You Best as the Man 53

(The Mothman Might Oughta Go Home) 55

Augury 57

About the Phones 59

Part III

(The Mothman on the Bullshit Curse of Interesting Times) 63

Seventh of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone 65

Eighth of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone 67

(The Mothman Startles the Neighbors) 69

Extraction 71

The Summer After the Winter I Taught You How to Start a Fire 73

(The Mothman Reads from The Book of the Dead) 75

Ninth of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone 77

Tenth of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone 79

(The Mothman Drops Out) 81

Peepers in February 83

Sneaking onto the Reservoir Again 85

(The Mothman Looks Back) 87

Let the Child Think She's Found an Arrowhead 89

A Pangram for the Post-Modern Typefaces 91

Eleventh of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone 93

(The Mothman Gets Clean) 95

Notes 97

Acknowledgments 101

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