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B. H. Fairchild

Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest

Poems

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.

B. H. Fairchild's memory systems are the collective vision of America's despairing dreamers—failed baseball players, oil field laborers, a surrealist priest, college boys at a burlesque theater, the last remaining cast members of The Wizard of Oz. Looming over all is the fact and the mystery of our continued renewal.

"These poems are an ecstatic celebration of language—long, lavish lines sprawling across the page as the speaker's consciousness roams the Kansas countryside. Fairchild is a spinner of tales who writes unforgettably of loneliness and the tenderness of the Midwest."—Chicago Tribune

"There is no more lyric celebration of America's grandeurs and desolations than in this superb collection of poems."—Anthony Hecht

"These poems make a rare, magical conjunction between a communal sense of place and a solitary habit of memory."—Eavan Boland

"What an exaltation!"—Richard Howard

"Fairchild is in touch with that America we almost forgot, melancholy, dream-ridden, wistful, ghost-like."—Gerald Stern


B. H. Fairchild is the author of The Art of the Lathe, a finalist for the National Book Award. He lives in Claremont, California.
Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest book jacket


June 2004 / paperback / ISBN 0-393-32566-0 / 6" x 8"
2003 / hardcover / ISBN 0-393-05096-3
142 pages / Poetry
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