| Summary: | Thesis (M.F.A.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2005 Welcome to Deadhorse features poems that are narrative and lyrical in nature and represent an aesthetic in which the land is an undeniable force, generally inseparable from the lives of characters involved. The sequence of the poems creates a narrative arc that follows the journey of a man running from a broken-down Dakota farm. Lured by myths of the north, and haunted by ghosts, he travels to Alaska and finds that everything he hoped he'd left behind has come along with him: isolation, alcoholism, a traumatic past. The narrator eventually comes full-circle, returning to a home he never really left behind. I. LEAVING -- Homestead, collapsed -- Blizzard o the Rez -- The wind still sweeps -- She used to waitress at the Chuckwagon -- Family time -- Sunday drives -- Riding midnight -- A father's grave -- Leaving home -- II. LATITUDE 62 -- 70-Mile Bar, British Columbia -- These walks, five miles to town -- Visiting the neighbors -- Talkeetna drinkers, winter -- Reflection -- Degrees of Fahrenheit -- February -- Mother's Day at the Fairview -- Up here -- What whiskey steals -- On a trail outside Coldfoot -- The raging moose -- Salmon -- Stranded -- August up north -- Fairview Bar -- Forecast -- III. THE ROAD -- Welcome to Deadhorse -- A perfect love -- Blindness -- Aleut internment: forty years later the government offers a written apology --The story she tells -- First time seeing her back from the hospital -- A jail cell is the biggest place on earth -- Road crew -- Working holidays -- Kate in Sitka -- Hitching south -- Gathering bones -- Rock picking -- Farland cemetery, 2005 -- Whetstone Lutheran Church.
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