Acknowledgments. Contents -- Foreword -- (The Mothman Gets High) -- Part I. (The Mothman Googles Its Own Name) ; First of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone ; Second of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone ; (The Mothman at Twelve) ; Psalm for the Haters in the Back ; Voicemail from My Mother ; (The Mothman Pronounces Appalachia) ; Third of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone ; Fourth of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone ; (The Mothman at the Psychiatrist's Office in the City) ; It Was Time Again for Bushhogging the Paddock ; Prayer for the Shitstains ; (The Mothman Watches a TV Movie and Resolves to Steal the Declaration of Independence) ; I Never Knew What They Meant by Flyover Country ; The Best Shot in the House -- Part I. (The Mothman Leaves the Used Car Lot Empty-Handed) ; The Season We Danced Alone While Pumping Gas ; Walking Blues Not Packaged for Individual Sale ; (The Mothman Picks Up a Misdemeanor) ; Fifth of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone ; Sixth of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone ; (The Mothman Dabbles in Etymology) ; Coming To ; I Remember You Best as the Man ; (The Mothman Might Oughta Go Home) ; Augury ; About the Phones -- Part III. (The Mothman on the Bullshit Curse of Interesting Times) ; Seventh of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone ; Eighth of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone ; (The Mothman Startles the Neighbors) ; Extraction ; The Summer After the Winter I Taught You How to Start a Fire ; (The Mothman Reads from The Book of the Dead) ; Ninth of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone ; Tenth of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone ; (The Mothman Drops Out) ; Peepers in February ; Sneaking onto the Reservoir Again ; (The Mothman Looks Back) ; Let the Child Think She's Found an Arrowhead ; A Pangram for the Post-Modern Typefaces ; Eleventh of Ten Elegies for Fire and Oxycodone ; (The Mothman Gets Clean) ; Notes ; Acknowledgments.
Summary:
"Robert Wood Lynn's collection of poems explores the tensions of youth and the saturation points of knowledge: those moments when the acquisition of understanding overlaps with regret and becomes a desire to know less. Comprising poems of place set across the Virginias, this collection includes an episodic elegy exploring the opioid crisis in the Shenandoah Valley as well as a separate series of persona poems reimagining the Mothman (West Virginia's famed cryptid) reluctantly coming of age in that state's mountains and struggling with the utility of warnings. These are narrative poems of love and grief, built from a storytelling tradition. Taken together they form an arc encompassing the experience of growing up, looking away, and looking back. This collection was selected by prestigious poet Rae Armantrout to become the 116th volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets"--Provided by publisher.
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