Common Uproar (Concrete Wolf Louis Award)

This is a poet of importance a poet who knows this western American landscape and renders its hidden stories and details--ranch life work horses trails red-tail hawks--in absolutely gorgeous language weaving a complex portrait of place that is by turns elegiac and starkly realistic. Poem after poem consists of rich beautiful language unerringly sophisticated and surprising at every turn. It would be a disservice to say this poet has arrived; judging from the brilliance of this book Michael Bowden arrived a long time ago and we are only now catching up. Amy Miller Final judge & previous Louis Award Winner for The Trouble with New England Girls Common Uproar is an exquisitely crafted collection. Bowden gathers many seasons of careful empathetic observations into poems polished like Bisbee turquoise. Often on the borderlands he navigates the flow of truth through a lifetime examining places where memories become dreams and bodies vanish into the desert. The reader is left with the glorious sensation of understanding almost everyday moments of haunting beauty before they disappear quick on the wing. Megan Baxter author of The Coolest Monsters Bowdens poems regard memory family the natural world--classic poetic subjects--but handle them with such quiet authority such vivid delicacy they shine. Jefferson Carter author of Birkenstock Blues