Kentucky Swami

Poetry. "Tim Skeen's John Ciardi Prize-winning collection reveals a distanced compassion so keen it might draw blood from his readers. He retells our hard histories, men and women at work in dangerous and impossible circumstances--labor wars, poverty, early death, disease, and violence--to cry out to his beloved, "How can you want children/in spite of the ossuaries of this world?" KENTUCKY SWAMI answers the question by moving in close, the poems a vibrant celebration of our continuing lives. This book is marvelous!"--Hilda Raz