Sufficiency of the Actual

Kevin Stein is Poet Laureate of Illinois and Caterpillar Professor of English at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. His previous publications include American Ghost Roses, Chance Ransom, and several other poetry collections, as well as two books of literary criticism and the poetry anthology Illinois Voices.

• OneAutumnal   3Sufficiency of the Actual   5On Being a Nielsen Family   7(My) History of Parsley   8September Falls Is No River's   10News Crawl   11Mars' Karma   12Lives of the Painters   14Middle-aged Adam's and Eve's Bedside Tables   16Ike's Caddy   18Talk Radio   23Blue Tuesday   24In Human Hands   26TwoTo Balance   31Postcard to Henry James   33Capitalism   34A Day's Work   36Song of the Night Shift Foreman   38On Thinking of the Second Time They Sholved Up Mr. Lincoln   40Pre-Bowdlerized Version of Poem for a Fourth-Grade Illinois History Text   43CR5115STD Responds to the National Consumer Survey   45Post-Feminist Machismo   47Poet's Genie   48Parakeet and Dark Star   49Mowing the Lawn   50ThreeAppetites Early and Other   53Aesthetics of Desire   55Natural Selection   58Religion   60Upon the Porch Swing's Time Machine   61To My Hair   63Lovesong Ending with (    )   65At the Mountain Man Rendezvous in Fairplay, Colorado   67Inverse Aviary in which Birds Talk   69On Reading Prince Valiant in the Sunday Comics   71Slippery Slope   73Colonialism    74Parable of the American Stag Party   76Arts of Joy   78Youthful Indiscretions   79

"Stein writes about ordinary objects in unremarkable lives-lawn mowers and Dodge pickups and TV sets and baseball caps-but upon that humble stuff, he sheds the golden radiance of close attention. His poems are delivered in everyday language, which means that when the epiphanies come, they pack a punch."--Chicago Tribune"A self-deprecating societal evaluation that has a tendency to hug and butcher, with lightning word choices that ring seconds after the last of the thunder has been heard."--Chicago Sun-Times "Many of Kevin Stein's poems hinge personal to social history, opening the private to the public and examining what connects and disconnects us. It's as if he wants to reside where the self meets the group, and discover there some sense of responsibility, of causal involvement with the world. He uses the focused moment of poetry to show how one life can speak to the condition of a country, and asks that we look critically at our involvement in the society we have made. This is a compelling and large-minded book."--Bob Hicok