Source Acknowledgments

A Mind Like This

Pickled Heads: St. Petersburg

Louise Erdrich Learning Ojibiwemowin

Tell Me If You've Heard This One

Kalamazoo Decides She Likes Her Name

"And All Trades, Their Gear And Tackle And Trim"

Boliche

Peripheral: Emerson, 1847

Knitting Lace

The Duc de Saint-Simon Buys Lady Murasaki a Drink

January, Tulips

Gaudeamus, Full Band Version

A Mind Like This

The Comfort of Pickup Trucks

Why I Hate Storytellers

Aftereffects of Bell's Palsy

Ode to My Bladder

Outside Interests

Learning Curves

Mount St. Helen's, May 18, 1980

Sexing the Alligator

The Sword

Mariah Educates the Sensitive

Crocheting Chaos

Children in Church

Beads

The Kalamazoo Mastodon

I'm in Love with Leonard Woolf

In Order to Swallow, a Frog Has to Close Its Eyes

Neruda in Kalamazoo

Deadheading with Kellee

Valentine's Day in Kalamazoo

Taking Jimmy Stewart to Bed

The Year Hits Perimenopause

Sow's Ear

Lilium Orientale

How to Seduce Henry David Thoreau

To a Picky Eater at Love's Table

August

Letter to Matt on the Opening Day of Deer Season

Stalling

Amplification

Sexing the Alligator

The Genome for Luck

Lidian Emerson Watches Her House Burn, Concord, July 23, 1872

Pattern and Ground

Consider Hairs

Emerson's Eyes

The Only Other Female in the House

Egg Tempera Painting, Koo Schadler, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts

The Tuesday Before Our Friday Visit

Afterthought

Meeting Edward Lear in Heaven

Elegy from Halfway Up the Drive

Our Third Wedding Reception This Year Hits Its Stride

Pattern and Ground

Washing My Husband's Kilt Hose: A 32-Bar Reel

Susan Blackwell Ramsey is an instructor at Kalamazoo Institute of Art. She won the Marjorie J. Wilson Award from Margie: The Journal for American Poetry and her poem "Pickled Heads, St. Petersburg" was chosen for the 2009 edition of Best American Poetry.

Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry, Susan Blackwell Ramsey’s A Mind Like This is a work of humor and wit, unexpectedly delightful and full of surprises as it reflects on the oddness of everyday life, the natural world, literary history, popular culture, and more. Everything is fair game for Ramsey, who finds poetry in love and sickness and life, of course, but also in knitting and unreliable bladders and the peculiar name of Kalamazoo. Neruda makes an appearance, as do Eric Clapton and Brahms, Leonard and Virginia Woolf, and Jimmy Stewart.

Whether observing the pickled heads of Peter the Great’s offenders, wondering “How to Seduce Henry David Thoreau,” becoming the insecure voice of Kalamazoo, or puzzling over the intricacies of the  mind that blocks a dear friend’s birthday while preserving the name of Emily Dickinson’s dog in perpetuity, Ramsey’s collection is wise and funny, allusive and deeply felt.