Distributed for CavanKerry Press
Cracked Piano
Margo Taft Stever acutely observes and describes human society, past and present. From her compelling and beautiful descriptions of life inside a nineteenth-century private insane asylum to her colorful and often critical depiction of elements of contemporary society, her poems profoundly speak to us. They describe the delicate line between the certifiably insane and the irrationality of everyday life; they depict a society sometimes harsh and ugly, sometimes soft and loving, with stunning visual imagery. Stever speaks to us about our interactions with each other and with the natural world. Each segment tells its own story that captures us and makes us think.
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Table of Contents
Idiot’s Guide to Counting • For Sale • Animal Crackers • The Worst Mother • Glimpse of an Infant Eating • Stepmother • Wind Innuendo • Foghorn • My Mother Is Dying • The Lunatic Ball • Something Wrong • Cracked Piano • Plank Walk • Causes of Mortification • No Occurrence of an Exciting Nature • Common Cases of Insanity • I have been my arm • Hudson Line • Missing Link • Valentine • Drought • Invisible Fence • Surfaces • Beulah Reid • Hand • The True Story of Eugene • Why So Many Poets Come from Ohio • Perimeter • Queen City • Quiet, with Trees • Strange Familiarities of Death • Van Gogh to His Mistress • Yellow Raincoat • Receiving the Ashes • Nothing’s Holding Up Nothing • Splitting Wood • Horse Fair • Raven’s Rock • Virgin Cult • Supermarket in Autumn • Devil’s Potato Patch • Bottomland • Notes • Acknowledgments