Shane Book's poetry appears in journals in the US, UK, and Canada and is widely anthologized, most recently in Gathering Ground. He was educated at the University of Western Ontario, the University of Victoria, New York University, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Stanford where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry. His awards include a New York Times Fellowship in Poetry, the Malahat Review Long Poem Prize, an Academy of American Poets Prize, and a National Magazine Award. Currently, in addition to teaching at Stanford, he is producing and directing the documentary film, Laborland.

Laborland Documentary Trailer and Photos
More of Shane's Poems at The Fishouse

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Four Poems:

They Are Not Bits of Clockwork

Node where may none die poor,
false, yellow. Node from whence
my nesting eye pours. Last creature,
as of daylight snorting swallowing
a lunar rail. It drills in. Bright
craving, all incredible. O banjo.
O quiet lantern. A protest
of lost astronauts stroking
through a thick strobe.
Nodding eye. Nodding eye.
Node where may none die.

[first published in Denver Quarterly]

They Are Exploding Just Feet above the Desert Sands

Node where may none die poor, almond,
mundane, but in this very Yes keep the body
at a distance. One Satan-boat cuss after
another, in swaths unamaranthine runs
the body deep in as a resent is. Pseudo-lore,
lead dollar, sin desk and sword o' smoke
so the body all tapered. The body would
lead well, if he on tender gears, spectral
switches, were to lay ever a sober bray.
A bad day for a grim taker, a serious gas.
Iced-in, the tabernacle.

[first published in 1913]

They Are Of an Extraordinary Feral Territory

Livid A. Alert A. Low A.
Skated-over gardens, don't A be.
A, welled as soda pop. Glass zero A.
Culling A, lulled by mulchy aches
powered by the brass memorial
of one bile-ish babe in the arms
of invention. Invention there to point
out: where to get, what to call. O, A.
A he zap at or flay as the lowest
all-moor down there. He wanna see
air, pace of one spare dawn that spare.
A, lasso latent but at the ready,
setting forth into the frontier.
A in the mummification lab,
cradling the glistening leg of
one delicately peeled camel. Quietly
rocking A, repeating the low say:
Air here is a con. Unviolent to scale
of one fantastic rushing-by. Azul were A.
Rio! As you were, A. As woolen.

[first published in 1913]

They Are Intrinsically Phosphorescent

Hoses keyed into a defoliated refuge.
Roasted meat scent off in the offing.
Stilled in play, in newest row of diggings
round the burnt greenish limestone manor,
one folie à deux. An oblique leaf
on the breeze changing course by less
than ninety degrees. A Marine chopper
posing a hole as day blazes below. Some
could fall in a dialed-in instant.
Alert, alert, then gone out into the length
we who you are.

 [first published in Denver Quarterly]

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