In a Landscape

John Gallaher is the author of The Little Book of Guesses (2007, Four Way Books), winner of the Levis Poetry Prize, Map of the Folded World (2009, University of Akron Press), and co-author, with G.C. Waldrep, of Your Father on the Train of Ghosts (2011, BOA Editions). His poetry appears widely in such places as The Boston Review, Crazyhorse, Field, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, and Westbranch, and in anthologies including The Best American Poetry. Gallaher is currently associate professor of English at Northwest Missouri State University, and co-editor of The Laurel Review.

• CONTENTSI“Are you happy?” That’s a good place to start, or maybe, II“Ghosts are people who think IIIIt appears that we’re living, which isn’t always the case, depending IVNow the scene changes, we say, and the next few years VOffers of help most often just end up complicating matters. That’s been VIWhat’s the most earnest you’ve ever been? Perhaps this VII“Changes that are characteristic of a living room VIIIAre we on the right track? Should it have been IX“What would you like?” the waitress asks. And really, XThe earth, friends, is doing fine. We’re the ones in danger, XIWe do, as we say, what had to be done. The way things XIIRoman numerals don’t do much for people XIIIHow many people haven’t you married, that you thought XIVI don’t know why, but for some reason I just forgot XVIt’s a nice idea, to think we might have no effect XVIThe early bird might get the worm, but the early person XVIIIn another sense, we’re foreign to each other. We say XVIII“All animals have interests,” I’m reading in an overview XIXIt’s our Indian Summer weekend, coming up. XXThe prompt is that you’re supposed to imagine XXIIn heaven, according to Kurt Vonnegut’s XXII“When Yer Twenty-Two” is an early song XXIIIOne of the best things about life XXIVIs being aware of our limitlessness XXVTo review, I’m thinking that cataloging XXVIWhat does it mean to be useful? To be a useful person? XXVII“There are flowers in the dirt XXVIII“It changes you,” they say about a lot of different things, XXIX“The idea just came to me one day,” or, better, XXXI’ve just been invited to read “A Book of Truths XXXIWhenever I see the Roman Numeral XXX XXXIIThe other night we drove downtown and something was on fire XXXIIIAll faces tend to have a permanent expression, XXXIVIf things contain their opposites, why bother? That suffices, I guess, XXXVDo you do these things, or do these things do you? It’s the same old XXXVIWhat year, what moment was it, when all the television aerials XXXVIII think “getting out of the way” is a great way to be helpful XXXVIIIWherever I get to, someone’s there. It’s a busy place, XXXIX“And every one of us, a kitten XLFour of us are here at the moment. Will this XLIIf only you could burn memories in a little pile XLIII changed my mind. I was stopping, XLIIIWhat Social Security means to me is that if I continue working XLIV“Is our ability to have confidence in another owing more to others XLVLife gives us numerous opportunities XLVIAnswer the question with a Yes or No. Indeed. Because XLVIIWhere’s the fun in doing something you already know how XLVIIIWhat is the reason for harboring ill-will toward another? XLIXThe college mascot is visiting the elementary school. It’s L“L” for landscape, where all of us are having different LI“Be proud of who you are LIINone of these things is ever quite it. In much LIII“Have you had a good life?” Good question. In the grand scheme LIVWhere’s the line between what constitutes repetition LVLooking at each other just now, which is the intrusion: LVIThe landscape is on fire, and where are you LVIIThere are stories we don’t tell, for whatever reason. Mostly LVIIIRichard’s back, talking about Easy Riders and Raging Bulls, LIXMost things aren’t necessary. So? Are we LXImproving our circumstances has been a stalled idea LXII want a house with a lot of windows, and all the windows LXIIIs your life the series of events LXIIIWhy not love pictures? Each time they come back, LXIVWhen one studies math, they say that what’s important LXVTonight’s program is Clandestinophilia, insisting LXVIOn the airline, I sat next to the woman with the young child, LXVIIIs there anything that isn’t hit or miss? After the believing game LXVIIIThere’s always a point at which each of us says LXIXThe new thing. There’s always got to be one, because LXXWhat does a person need, finally? What, specifically, LXXIKings, they say, need reminding, but I don’t think so, at least

"Like all curious and worried (not neurotic) artists, Gallaher would rather communicate psychically ... but like all of us he has to use words. You can feel it in his sentences, that if you were to actually talk to him he would probably say 'you know??' a lot. I think it's because we all 'do know,' we just don't know until someone triggers that thing which is the nerve ending that travels to the subconscious and PING! So yeah, maybe I was wrong ... Gallaher is not a writer or a poet, he is a psychic using words to trick us." --Wayne Coyne, The Flaming Lips "I have long considered John Gallaher to be one of the most thought-provoking poets of his generation, and In a Landscape is his best book yet. These poems are fidgety and sneaky--engaged with a world of characters, traffic, memories, and perception. But just beneath their deceptively playful surfaces lies real urgency, as Gallaher grapples with the instability of the recollected past, the nature of mortality, and the impossibility of truly knowing the intentions of others. Reading these poems is like listening in on the thoughts of a brilliant mind at work on unsolvable, often existential problems, the poet always peering outward, toward a landscape of autobiography and memory that 'goes on all night, dotted with little fires.'" --Kevin Prufer, author of National Anthem "[In a Landscape] functions as an extended monologue of varied pitch and range in which the speaker is less concerned with results and technical prowess than the process of speaking (and living) itself ... Gallaher's charm and wit, and the project's breadth, will woo readers." --Publishers Weekly "Like Whitman, Gallaher celebrates his vast incomprehension of the material world, no matter how big or how small, from Bob the Builder to John Cage, even as he ambulates to map the mind's terrain, unsure if the two remain as visibly distinct as traffic lights or stars in space... If you're looking for answers, Gallaher's not going to give them to you. If you're looking for questions, you've just stumbled on something great." --Common Good Books