Borrowed Towns

by Richard Newman

A book of poems

Genres: Poetry

84 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Richard Newman is the author of the poetry collections Domestic Fugues (Steel Toe Books, 2009) and Borrowed Towns (Word Press, 2005) as well as several poetry chapbooks. He received a 2014 Regional Arts Commission Individual Artists Fellowship to complete his third full-length collection, All the Wasted Beauty of the World (Able Muse Press, 2014). His novel Graveyard of the Gods (Blank Slate Press) will appear in 2016. His poems, stories, essays and plays have appeared in Best American Poetry, Boulevard, Crab Orchard Review, New Letters, Poems & Plays, The Sun, and many other periodicals and anthologies, and have been featured several times on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry, Poetry Daily, and Verse Daily. His poem “Bellefontaine Cemetery” won First Place in The Ledge 2010 Poetry Awards Competition. He received his MFA in Poetry from Spalding University in Louisville. He teaches at Washington University and for the last 20 years has served as editor of River Styx and co-director of the River Styx Reading Series.

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I was doing a formal review of Borrowed Towns by Richard Newman, I would have to think long and hard about why a poet would choose to place Bigfoot and Mothra poems (even if they are rather charming Bigfoot and Mothra poems) in a collection of works that are otherwise explorations of the beautiful and the bizarre in small Midwestern towns. But since I am just writing a short blurb, I have to say that Borrowed Towns is one of the best books of poetry I have read in a long time. Richard Newman is one of the poets that I wish I would have discovered long before now. Whether he is writing about old coins or a small outcast of a boy, Newman manages to aproach his subjects with both honesty and charm. The people in this collection are funny and real, and the landscape is beautiful. My personal favorite? The concluding poem, "Slow Fires" where the poet describes a whole world burning, as a coal fire rages beneath the ground.

[Ned Balbo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Newman's first book is deeply felt, technically proficient, funny, and original. From the movie monsters who speak with disarming frankness ("Let's face it: I make a shitty monster," the protagonist of "Mothra" confesses) to the literally unsettling reflections of "Tastes Like Chicken" ("After all, we made the chicken, bred it,/adjusted it to the human taste bud--/the bare standard we now hold to nature"), this poet's arch observations and stylistic command are joined to an unpretentious and compelling viewpoint. Throughout Borrowed Towns, popular culture and autobiography intertwine to acknowledge both the heartbreak and hope at the core of human experience.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Newman is a badass of a poet - brutal at times, always elegant. The bleak midwestern landscape of his hometowns, where even the ditches have names, are a perfect backdrop for his sad and funny poems. Favorite poems include his monster sonnets, which expose the existential angst of your favorite matinee movie idols, including Mothra ("Let's face it, I make a shitty monster").

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

My good friend Richard...read it!