The Horse Who Bears Me Away

by Jim Peterson

Overview

In the first section of The Horse Who Bears Me Away, “The Fall,” an assortment of characters descend inwardly to the point of personal despair. In the second section, “Anywhere but Omaha,” they begin, with difficulty, to see more clearly who and what they are and to climb their way out of the nadir. In the final section, “Mutation,” the characters embark on a path to transformation—an awakening into a new way of seeing and existing in a world that is constantly testing the validity of their identities. This collection of poems, Peterson’s seventh, challenges readers to consciously embrace the dark side of their American psyche and to reach past it to a new way of being at peace with both the known and the unknown, which is called freedom.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781597094115
Publisher:	Red Hen Press
Publication date:	09/22/2020
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jim Peterson is the author of six collections of poetry, three chapbooks, numerous plays, and a novel, Paper Crown, published by Red Hen Press and recently made available on Audible. His poetry collection The Owning Stone won Red Hen Press’s Benjamin Saltman Award for 1999. His newest collection, Speech Minus Applause, was released by Press 53 in 2019. His poems have appeared widely in journals including Poetry, Georgia Review, Shenandoah, Poetry Northwest, Prairie Schooner, and many others. His stories have appeared in the Los Angeles Review, South Dakota Review, and The Laurel Review. A collection of stories, Many Small Fires, is forthcoming from Red Hen Press. Retired Coordinator of Creative Writing at Randolph College, he is on the faculty of the University of Nebraska-Omaha Low-Res MFA Program in Creative Writing. He lives with his charismatic corgi, Mama Kilya, in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Read an Excerpt

THE HORSE

In the enormity of bone and flesh

that splits the night with blood and breath;

in the rising brushstroke of pastern, fetlock,

cannon bone and stifle; in the rolling sloop

of dock, croup, withers and poll,

I discover my body.

In the barrel that takes to the grip of thighs,

the flank that accepts the needling heel;

in the mane where I bury my hands at last;

in the forelock and muzzle of that long face;

in the chin groove, jaw and throat

that swallows my words like cracked oats;

in the two black eyes that glean the full circle

of horizon; in the shell-song of each ear;

in the heart, in the heart, the horse who bears me away.

LAID OFF

Yesterday, I strolled among the cold meats

and the small bland vegetables in their bins

and could not find anything I wanted.

I admit, I took some pleasure in ramming

the metal cart into the long stuck row of others—

make of that what you will—and walked

into the street happy with my hunger.

I could feel my body retreating

into bone, my skin pulling tighter around me

in the wind. A seagull fed on tiny morsels

of something on the trashy asphalt,

a hundred miles from ocean.

Two miles away my wife was packing to leave me.

I left my car in the lot and walked into a neighborhood

among sparrows plunging their heads

into the blades of grass. Even the housecats

stretching and licking on windowsills

had something definite on their minds for later,

pausing mid-lick in case it might

be me, now. But today, I’ll stay home,

making do with what I have. Outside,

everything is leaning into one

decision after another. A freight train

slows down to cross my street, one hand

emerging as if to wave from the long window

of a boxcar. In here, the fridge

is busy saving what is left of what is left.

The TV is a voiceless flickering in the corner

of my eye. Weeks ago I wrote the checks

for this brief future. Today I lie down

on the lawn I will not bother to mow again.

Table of Contents

Prologue

The Horse 19

The Fall / one

Breakfast at the Western Café 23

Laid Off 26

Whatever 28

Your Hand 31

Manpower 34

Insomnia 37

The Hobo's Invitation 39

Thin Air 41

The Fall / two

Rain, 47

Tundra 49

Progress 51

The Fall 53

Signs 54

Spring on the Yellowstone 56

Carvings on a Prayer Tree 57

This One Hat 62

The Day of the Shark 64

The Fall / three

Blink 69

Drunk Tank 71

The Mole 76

Anywhere But Omaha

Rethink It 81

Masks 83

The Brave 85

The Radiance 87

Why She Did It 90

Mutation

Full 95

Dollars 97

Salute 99

The Necessary 103

Old Listener 104

Hunger in a Small Town 106

The Keys 110

The Origin of Mouths 112

Listening to the White-Throated Sparrow 114

Mutation 115

The Ambush Garden 118

Open House 120

New Animal 123

Goya's Dog 125

Sayings of an Old Slash Pine 128

Breaking the Sage 131

Night, and the Mockingbird 141

What You Know 143

Study 146

Wolf 148

Eternal House 150

Epilogue

Naked 157

Editorial Reviews

"Jim Peterson’s poems arise from that place where the world we know touches against the world we have always suspected might be there. In this place, we hear the wind 'lisping her two or three words / of prolonged astonishment.' A dream becomes 'the body of a forest.' I have been a follower of Jim Peterson’s work for almost four decades and have rarely read a poem of his that did not surprise me. The poems in The Horse Who Bears Me Away are no exception. In flights of lyric glory and narratives that gallop heedlessly forward, these poems offer the delight of 'knowing who we are and who we’ll never be.' Here are new delights. Draw close and savor them." —Al Maginnes, author of The Next Place

"This is the work of a mature poet who has risen to new heights. There’s heartbreaking beauty in these words—and in the feelings and insights behind them. On page after page, Jim Peterson grabs the treacherous, turning world by the throat and forces out its secrets. If you want to know what poetry can do for the spirit, read this book. Then read it again, and be even more thankful." —Clint McCown, author of The Dictionary of Unspellable Noises

"The poems in Jim Peterson’s The Horse Who Bears Me Away live and breathe within the world of flesh, through bodies that discover and rediscover themselves in strange and miraculous ways. Voices, too, animate these pages—the voices of laid-off laborers, hobos, crows, cougars, slash pines, wind 'voicing its concern,' mockingbirds, lost and dying friends, and waitresses in places where 'hands know their roles by heart.' From the stunning prologue, where the speaker merges with the body and spirit of a horse, to the epilogue, in which a dream strips him bare 'as if fresh from creation,' Peterson invites us, his lucky readers, 'to ease into these hands and feet, / pulling this body on like an old coat / that was made for you.'” —Rebecca McClanahan, author of In the Key of New York City

From the Publisher