Paradise, Indiana

Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize Series

by Bruce Snider

A father and son shovel snow from a driveway; a boy accidentally sets himself on fire; two boys fish for bluegill; a young drag queen returns home to die. At the center of it all, a teenage boy's suicide resonates through the lives of those closest to him. The poems in Bruce Snider's Paradise, Indiana describe a place where mundane events neighbor the most harrowing.
Shaped by the author's experiences growing up in rural Indiana, Snider investigates the landscapes traditionally claimed by male poets such as James Wright, James Dickey, and Richard Hugo, whose visions of place rarely, if ever, included the presence of gays and lesbians. Paradise, Indiana envisions a seldom recorded rural America, one where everything exists side by the county fair and an abandoned small town gay bar, farmers and cross-dressers, death and hope, beauty and despair.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published April 16, 2012

About the author

Bruce Snider is the author of the poetry collections PARADISE, INDIANA, winner of the 2011 Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize, and THE YEAR WE STUDIED WOMEN, winner of the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in the AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW, PLOUGHSHARES, GETTYSBURG REVIEW,POETRY, and BEST AMERICAN POETRY 2012. Originally from Indiana, he was a Wallace Stegner fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University. He is currently the Jenny McKean Moore Fellow at George Washington University in Washington D.C.

Reviews

[Matthew Siegel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE THIS BOOK

[Mairyn McGilvray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cried from page 51- the end. Broke me

[e · Rating 5 out of 5]

some thoughts:

I gasped audibly after nearly every page.
An excellent example of how poetry can move between different realms and across consciousnesses.
Heartbreaking yes, grief, abuse, the stories we tell ourselves... but also love and transcendence and astounding imagery.
Also a bit magical/uncanny in its rawness, in its physical realms and forms; the place becomes an unreal landscape that exists in memory, fuzzy around the edges, yet sharp- in the way that the most ordinary things are sometimes the most unbelievable.
Haunting.

...was fortunate to see him speak recently, and this really resonated with me:
"I'm interested in the way language reveals people."

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best structured collections of poetry I've ever read. It progresses so well (with backstories and afterlifes). Devastation waits on almost every page while memories of childhood locations come into bloom. Born and raised in Mishawaka, Indiana, this book instantly threw me back into small town Indiana. While not necessarily my style of poetry (very heavy, very sobering), it's an incredibly well written collection. Grab this if you enjoyed the films Take Shelter and/or Winter's Bone.

[Evan]

"A new thing, this silence
between us—his headstone rising

inarticulate from dirt. I listen:
a squirrel chatters near the creek bed.

His memory, an endless window
I can't get shut. I wake to cold nights,

sleep all day. I dream the car,
salvage sign swinging over its hard face.

I touch the door, windshield gone
and everything revealed: torn seats

and the stink of gasoline, blackbirds
on the dash where his head lay,

each dropped seed picked clean."

[TA Inskeep · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a fellow queer Hoosier, I'm struck most by Snider's sense of place. I know these places, I can feel these places. The fact that he's writing about them as a queer boy, and then man, means all the more.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't usually read poetry, but I loved this. The heartache of a dead lover and the memories of childhood landscapes disappearing were captured brilliantly.

[Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

i realized that this was a story more so than a collection a little too late

[A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was filled with surprises, rawness, and a wealth of imagery for a landscape that I desperately love. The structure was wonderful and lent itself to a storytelling that is not terribly common in poetry collections. Will be buying and revisiting this one.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paradise, Indiana is a book length elegy. From the start, we see the poet mourning the loss of a cousin. In many poems, Snider narrates the past. For example, in "Parts" the narrator explains the relationship he and his cousin have with automobiles: "In the back of that car, all elbows/and mouths, we knew nothing//corrupted like happiness." This shared love is traced through many poems, but is especially important in "At these Speeds" where the narrator says, "He saved for months (mowing lawns, taking/extra shifts at the Dairy Queen) and when//finally he brought it home, I helped him/swirling rags, polishing until the hubcaps shone//the tires special ordered to fit." It's apparent that the narrator shares this love of cars, but then ends the poem pondering the choice his cousin made to take his own life: "But how could I imagine//such travel, knowing only the grief of it/which held me as long as it must have held him/engine//quivering, headlights filling the dark ordinary/garage, one sudden brilliance, then the next?"

Long after his cousin's death, the poet grapples with life and loss, in several poems titled "Afterlife". My favorite is the work where the narrator contemplates the significance of physical objects left behind: "Months later/his wadded t-shirt still smells//of chewing tobacco/his basketball jersey/unforgivable in its wrinkled heap."

The poet also chronicles the loss through other characters. He explains in "Fortress" that "After his death, Aunt Starr disappeared/in heaps of faux gold jewelry..." In "The Girlfriend" the narrator watches as his cousin's girlfriend mourns, but somehow moves on so "That spring, she'll date a guy/on the basketball team" while the narrator himself says"When I pass her at school/I'll pretend I don't see her."

A beloved cousin's death is not the only loss detailed in this collection, however. Loss is very much part of the physical landscape. Indeed, the opening poem, "Map" is written in one of my favorite forms: the ghazal. In this poem, the persona offers both mourning and solace set against this kind of backdrop: "Each winter, sleet turns the cornfield into a cemetery/It's epitaph reads: Indiana."

It may be rather presumptuous of me to say that Snider has re-written the elegy. But I will say it anyways. Through the reconstruction of a Midwest that many believe we have already seen in poetry, Snider ventures into places such as gay bars and grungy rest stops, stores where grandmothers shoplift and backyards where young teenage boys touch forbidden sexual escapades, all the while studying what is means to suffer loss but also have hope. For those who love narrative poetry, this collection is definitely one you want to pick up!

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems wrecked me. Essentially, an elegy for a teen suicide and an exploration of the aftermath it brings to small town America. Snider writes beautifully about the intimate moments he and his cousin Nick shared before Nick took his own life with a hose and an idling car. What comes across the strongest here is a sense of the hidden trauma: these poems are filled with bodies coming to terms with a renegade sexuality. Just really fantastic all the way through. Definitely recommend for fans of contemporary, narrative poetry.

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[quiescent · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll admit that my reading comprehension is sub-par, but I found these collection of poems to be beautiful (from what I could gather and understand). The imagery is intense and rich-- it leaves the reader wondering and/or wanting more. The collection read like a memoir, giving me glimpses into the author's life. I'm so fortunate to have had Bruce as my creative nonfiction teacher. It was such a highlight of not only my senior year, but entire college career. Thank you!

[Danielle Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of visually and emotionally charged poems.