A Litany of Dreams You May Borrow. Every disaster branches out from another -- Calf -- During the Wildfires -- Song Dogs -- Nights like these I think of my sisters -- Partition -- Unvigil -- In which I dream I am my grandfather -- Not the ending (that came much later) but when we knew it was over -- On his deathbed, my father, who I haven't seen in ten years, offers me homemade moonshine -- They Named You Patriarch -- Wellspring -- Buttercream -- Leveret at Laughing Jaw -- Parameters -- Deer Season -- Fast Beauty -- I know we're all sick of poems with deer but let me explain -- Lady of the Shovel -- Some thoughts on the one who said I expected too much -- Not how the silo stood but what it was after the fire -- A Poem to Multiple Men -- God's Country -- Spur -- Your grandfather killed a deer, my grandfather killed a deer -- Oxbow -- Diobsud Creek Pack -- Daughter Knot -- Ember -- Droplet -- Lion's Mane -- In retrospect, I dream of our wedding -- When you first ask if we can have a child -- A rewriting of our last goodbye -- Bald Eagle on Blue Stones -- After the horses are gone -- A Litany of Dreams You May Borrow.
Summary:
"Winner of the Wren Poetry Prize selected by final judge Ada Limón, Caitlin Scarano's second full-length collection is The Necessity of Wildfire. It begins, "To not harm / each other is not enough. I want to love you / so much that you have no before." These poems chase a singular, thorny question: how does where and who we came from shape who and how we love? Judge Ada Limón says the resulting collection is "hungry, clear-eyed, tough, and generous." Though originally from the South, Scarano's imagination is galvanized by the Pacific Northwest-floods and wildfires, the Salish Sea and the North Cascades, and the humans and animals whose lives intersect and collide there. In this collection, Scarano reckons with a legacy of violence on both sides of her family, the death of her estranged father, the unraveling of two long-term relationships, the complexity of sexuality, and her decision not to have children. With fierce lyricality, these poems--"stories without monsters, / stories without morals"--resist both redemption and blame, yet call in mercy"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.