paper •  54 pages • 15.95
ISBN-13: 978-1884800-8-56

After Dayton

C. S. Carrier

A Stahlecker Series Selection

AZALEA

An azalea maneuvers beside the porch.
I sit on a rockwall below the azalea and its eyebent petals.
I burn between my azaleas.
Backpedaling, the azalea surrenders its arms.
My hair’s the most beautiful azalea.
I don’t speak until spoken to,
until an azalea’s strapped to my back. Where I coalesce
I butcher the Spanish azaleas of tongues.
I take pictures of barns and rockformations
along the azalea.
The azalea up the block sells cheap whiskey, perfume.
Candles hold azaleas and their lyric improvisations.
Call me azalea. I’m azalea on both sides, dawg,
inheriting a southerncross.
Nothing exists I can’t azalea with a glass of water.
Should there be a threemonth grace azalea for sex?
The azalea blushes, wipes its face, which stings the sidewalk.
I blow smoke at the azalea and write
letters to imaginary lovers, azaleas.
The azalea comes unfluorinated.
In its white church are the snarls of red timberwolves.

Praise by Peter Gizzi
Praise by Lisa Jarnot
Praise by James Tate
Praise by Dara Wier

“With inspired catalogs, pronouncements of love, peace offerings, and promises, Carrier magically reveals, in poem after poem, that ‘the mind’s ordinary task’ is to be bodacious, supercharged, and holy. This book is pulsing with a dense lyricism of obsession and celebration as only he can sing it.” —Peter Gizzi

 

 

 

“Channeling an early twentieth century surrealism, C. S. Carrier pieces together a puzzle graced by the figure of the mother, a bunch of azaleas, and the poet Tomaž Šalamun. After Dayton is a gentle charming first book by a poet who’s worth keeping in sight.” —Lisa Jarnot

“C. S. Carrier’s poems are an explosion of language, eerily precise, creating an alternate world in which one is surprisingly comfortable. It’s a beautiful place to start your new life, and for this we should be grateful. These poems are an amazing jolt to the head, just what real poetry should be.” —James Tate

 

 

 

“C. S. Carrier’s After Dayton is a book about being born. Everything new, everything needing a name, everything awesomely untethered and unfathomed. What is amazing is that Carrier finds words to let us in on these secrets. Who is this Tomaž Šalamun, what are these talking azaleas, what do poetry and love do for one another and for us? Carrier courageously and carefully lends us something without which we’d be bereft and, possibly, strangely unborn.” —Dara Wier