Little Armageddon

Gregory Fraser is a poet, editor, and professor. He is the author of three poetry collections, Strange PietÀ, Answering the Ruins, and Designed for Flight, as well as the coauthor, with poet Chad Davidson, of two college textbooks, Writing Poetry and Analyze Anything: A Guide to Critical Reading and Writing. Fraser grew up in Philadelphia and its suburbs and earned a B.A. at Ursinus College, an M.F.A. at Columbia University, and a Ph.D. at the University of Houston. His poetry has appeared in such journals as the Paris Review, the Southern Review, the Gettysburg Review, and Ploughshares. The recipient of grants from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, Fraser is a professor at the University of West Georgia and serves as features editor of the Birmingham Poetry Review.

• Part IBusinessMy Idea of HeavenLittle ArmageddonNothing but a Few Bare TreesLucky GnarlThe End of SummerLike AngelsAfter of FireThe BossCuckoldZeno and His MistressA GatheringPart IIHide and SeekThe Good NewsThe HollowVery Tall MushroomsMy Daughter and the LizardEclipseThe Son HatDark HarborThe Dwarf of Ella StreetTranslation the FirstSwaddle the FirstConfession the FirstInvitation the FirstMiscarriage the FirstFatherlandThe Late FatherCharon in the Pediatric WardI Love My Wife but the Problem IsPart IIIStill Life with LemonsAftermathsTwo MothersThe Potato and the MarigoldOne Sunday DuskThe PotHow the Poor Fly

“Gregory Fraser’s canny fourth collection of poems sets the human comedy to a soulful American soundtrack, a medley of pensive reveries and disarming reckonings. When it comes to distilling the maladies of the quotidian into tonic lyric feeling, his ear is sure and his aim is true. At every turn in this bittersweet chronicle of the middle of life’s journey, he shows he’s a natural at playing changes on ‘what to make of the simple, the small,’ be it calling back ‘the rhythmic slap of summer / in a jump rope on cement’ or calling up the ghosts of immigrant ancestors who ‘lighted on a hyphen.’ In its largeness of spirit and the fullness of its gifts, Little Armageddon is a slim volume that leaves a big footprint.” —David Barber, author of Secret History: Poems (Northwestern University, 2019)