Poems reflecting the rich panoply of personal and public life in modern America, from the Poet Laureate of Illinois

One
Autumnal   3
Sufficiency of the Actual   5
On Being a Nielsen Family   7
(My) History of Parsley   8
September Falls Is No River's   10
News Crawl   11
Mars' Karma   12
Lives of the Painters   14
Middle-aged Adam's and Eve's Bedside Tables   16
Ike's Caddy   18
Talk Radio   23
Blue Tuesday   24
In Human Hands   26

Two
To Balance   31
Postcard to Henry James   33
Capitalism   34
A Day's Work   36
Song of the Night Shift Foreman   38
On Thinking of the Second Time They Sholved Up Mr. Lincoln   40
Pre-Bowdlerized Version of Poem for a Fourth-Grade Illinois History Text   43
CR5115STD Responds to the National Consumer Survey   45
Post-Feminist Machismo   47
Poet's Genie   48
Parakeet and Dark Star   49
Mowing the Lawn   50

Three
Appetites Early and Other   53
Aesthetics of Desire   55
Natural Selection   58
Religion   60
Upon the Porch Swing's Time Machine   61
To My Hair   63
Lovesong Ending with (    )   65
At the Mountain Man Rendezvous in Fairplay, Colorado   67
Inverse Aviary in which Birds Talk   69
On Reading Prince Valiant in the Sunday Comics   71
Slippery Slope   73
Colonialism    74
Parable of the American Stag Party   76
Arts of Joy   78
Youthful Indiscretions   79
 

Kevin Stein is Poet Laureate of Illinois and Caterpillar Professor of English at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. His previous publications include American Ghost Roses, Chance Ransom, and several other poetry collections, as well as two books of literary criticism and the poetry anthology Illinois Voices.