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New Southern poetry in which Field lets loose a Calamity Jane-like voice loaded with screwball humor

What rises—and to what end? Farrah Field’s award-winning debut collection, Rising, offers a new Southern poetry in which Field lets loose a Calamity Jane-like voice loaded with screwball humor.

Endorsements:

“Farrah Field is a slinger of the colloquial phrase, the slangy, side-of-the-mouth aphorism which combines the clever and the cornpone. At once masked and mouthy, cryptic and in-your face, her voice is flavored by a Southern regionalism, but the country manners are deployed at a metropolitan speed. The best of her poems represent the hybrid dilemma of an inside-outsider, who isn’t sure how much of her belongs to any tribe, a resonant story we all share at times. ‘There’s a southern gawd composed of green beans/ with fat back, tractor tires, and young’ns sprayed / by a hose,’ she says, and, ‘I am part of them like fire insurance and quick / look to the left.’ Elsewhere she hits more elegant registers: ‘Your printer light is on in our sad governance.’ There is grief under this skillful tonal recklessness, and these poems possess a wonderful combination of irony and soul, satire and vulnerability, which shines a warmly human light..”—Tony Hoagland, Levis Poetry Prize Judge

From the Book:

IN LECOMPTE BAYOU

Snakes hang like fingers in branches,
claw through humidity, the S away.
This is your introduction to Spanish moss

and duckweed. You want to stand
on the cut-trees below the surface.
You want to ask, Have you ever?

The rower doesn't say much, but is in
definite dialogue. As you are.
Friends told you his mother was a nurse

in Vietnam and made this boat herself.
He stares as if he sees your nipples.
Who first noticed his calloused hands.

As he heaves the boat along, you're sure
he stole your missing rabbit. The paddles
hit the water: trust, lift, gleam, trust.

Awards/Recognition:

Levis Poetry Prize 2008

FARRAH FIELD'S poems have appeared in many publications including: Chelsea, Margie, The Massachusetts Review, Mississippi Review, and Pool. She lives in Brooklyn.

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