For the Mountain Laurel: Poems

by John Casteen

In his second collection, Casteen moves inward from the physical labor and vernacular culture that shaped his first book, Free Union, yet continues to focus on landscape and human relationships. With poems arranged in the order in which they were completed (which in large part reflects the order in which they were first written), Casteen presents a poetic record of the experiences of solitude, marriage, fatherhood, loss, and recovery. The Carolina chickadee can be heard in this work, but so can Emmylou Harris singing with Gram Parsons; these poems dwell in the music of language, the hard truths of those who are no longer young, and the pleasures of the reflective life.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2011

About the author

John Casteen (John T. Casteen IV) grew up in Charlottesville, Virginia. He has also lived in Connecticut, Maine, and Iowa. He lives in Earlysville, Virginia, with his wife, Laurie Casteen, and their children. A graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, Casteen has contributed opinion and analysis pieces on gun policy, environmental policy, and professional ethics to Slate.com, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Virginia Quarterly Review, and other magazines and newspapers. His poems and criticism have appeared in Ploughshares, The Southern Review, Shenandoah, The Paris Review, and other literary journals.

For ten years, Casteen was self-employed as a designer and builder of custom furniture. He is now Visiting Assistant Professor at Sweet Briar College, where he founded and directs the Sweet Briar Undergraduate Creative Writing Conference. He has also taught at The University of Virginia, and since 2005 has served on the editorial staff of The Virginia Quarterly Review

Reviews

[Rebe]

Read this in one go on my shift at the library. It's a slender, artful little volume, and I admit, I picked it up in large part because of the beautiful cover. Also because I know John Casteen (he teaches at my college). I can't say I'm in love with any individual poem, but I enjoyed the collection overall. His writing is certainly evocative and features intricate, unusual language on every page. Overall, reminds me of Brandon Som or Dean Young.