The Low Passions

the long version

"In this haunting debut, 'Anders Carlson-Wee makes the rugged physical and emotional world of the upper plains our world' (B. H. Fairchild). Explosive and incantatory, The Low Passions traces the fringes of the American experiment through the eyes of a young drifter. Pathologically frugal, reckless, and vulnerable, the narrator of these viscerally compelling poems hops freight trains, hitchhikes, dumpster dives, and sleeps in the homes of total strangers, scavenging forgotten and hardscrabble places for tangible forms of faith. Amplified by a chorus of monologues from the strangers who shelter him, and the family he's left behind, a range of strong-willed characters takes shape--made manifest by the poet's devoted ear and sensitive eye"--