Bloom, and: The Ozarks

Abstract

Abstract:"Bloom" is a poem in which a beautiful facade is built on invisible ruin, in which the speaker walks through a wealthy neighborhood and reflects on the way the rich preserve local beauty as property while committing acts of ecological and political violence "elsewhere." The lyric speaker is broken and is breaking on the realization of their presence and complicity in this ruin.Abstract:"The Ozarks" is an elegy for a poet. It is written in the third-person; so, even in the present of the poem, the mourner stands outside themself. The speaker observes himself breaking into the dead poet's house and moving among a collection of objects that have personal significance. Gradually, the poem moves from the dead poet's objects to the dead poet's