My Monument

by Ander Monson

Surrounded by his neighbors’ maximalist holiday display—104 inflatable Christmas decorations in all, with not a repetition among them—Ander Monson ponders the history of spectacle and considers the meaning of community. Then, he orders a two-story-tall Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to stand among the desert plants of his Tucson front yard.

Genres: Essays

43 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 2019

About the author

Ander Monson is the author of Vanishing Point; Neck Deep and Other Predicaments, winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize; the novel Other Electricities; and the poetry collections Vacationland and The Available World. He lives and teaches in Arizona and edits the magazine DIAGRAM.

Although Ander is a proud graduate of Knox College, he also received advanced degrees from Iowa State and the University of Alabama.

More info is available here.
http://poetry.arizona.edu/presenter-a...

Reviews

[Cinthia Ritchie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, this chapbook surprised me with its humor, beautiful writing and bittersweet analogies. It's the perfect story arc: Monson begins with a slightly cynical voice as he describes his Tucson neighbors' outlandish holiday decorations. Yet, he soon finds himself ordering an enormous inflatable reindeer and then sort of, kind of falls in love with what it stands for, not just within the neighborhood but within himself. What I loved most is how expertly Monson weaves beautifully rendered moments of complex emotions between laugh-out-loud humor. I highly recommend this one.

[Beau · Rating 5 out of 5]

This hilarious and touching forty-three page essay gave me chills as layer after layer of humanity formed and pressed me beneath their collective weight.