Description
2013 National Book Award Finalist
In his moving debut collection, Matt Rasmussen faces the tragedy of his brother's suicide, refusing to focus on the expected pathos, blurring the edge between grief and humor. In Outgoing, the speaker erases his brother's answering machine message to save his family from ""the shame of dead you / answering calls."" In other poems, once-ordinary objects become dreamlike. A buried light bulb blooms downward, ""a flower / of smoldering filaments."" A refrigerator holds an evening landscape, ""a tinfoil lake,"" ""vegetables / dying in the crisper."" Destructive and redemptive, Black Aperture opens to the complicated entanglements of mourning: damage and healing, sorrow and laughter, and torment balanced with moments of relief.
About the Author
Matt Rasmussen's poetry has appeared in Gulf Coast, H_NGM_N, and at Poets.org. A founding coeditor of Birds LLC, a small, independent poetry press, he is a 2012- 2013 McKnight Artist Fellow and teaches at Gustavus Adolphus College.
Awards
Winner of Walt Whitman Award 2012 and Minnesota Book Award (Poetry) 2014. Commended for National Book Awards (Poetry) 2013.
Book Information
ISBN 9780807150863
Author Matt Rasmussen
Format Paperback
Page Count 72
Imprint Louisiana State University Press
Publisher Louisiana State University Press
In his moving debut collection, Matt Rasmussen faces the tragedy of his brother's suicide, refusing to focus on the expected pathos, blurring the edge between grief and humor. In Outgoing, the speaker erases his brother's answering machine message to save his family from ""the shame of dead you / answering calls."" In other poems, once-ordinary objects become dreamlike. A buried light bulb blooms downward, ""a flower / of smoldering filaments."" A refrigerator holds an evening landscape, ""a tinfoil lake,"" ""vegetables / dying in the crisper."" Destructive and redemptive, Black Aperture opens to the complicated entanglements of mourning: damage and healing, sorrow and laughter, and torment balanced with moments of relief.
About the Author
Matt Rasmussen's poetry has appeared in Gulf Coast, H_NGM_N, and at Poets.org. A founding coeditor of Birds LLC, a small, independent poetry press, he is a 2012- 2013 McKnight Artist Fellow and teaches at Gustavus Adolphus College.
Awards
Winner of Walt Whitman Award 2012 and Minnesota Book Award (Poetry) 2014. Commended for National Book Awards (Poetry) 2013.
Book Information
ISBN 9780807150863
Author Matt Rasmussen
Format Paperback
Page Count 72
Imprint Louisiana State University Press
Publisher Louisiana State University Press
