Midwestern Poet's Incomplete Guide to Symbolism

by Erica Anderson-Senter

Midwestern Poet’s Incomplete Guide to Symbolism reads like a map through a Midwestern landscape of love, heartache, and enduring grief. Equal parts visual dictionary, cryptogram, and Rosetta Stone, these poems identify the world’s constantly shifting meaning. A deer is not just a deer. A horse is not only a horse. A drop of blood has wide-ranging implications. In language that is both plain-spoken and image-driven, these poems capture the body in all its beauty and pain, as well as the heart in its immortal ebb and flow. From the loss of a father to the agony of miscarriage, from the dissolution of a marriage to the complexities of adult love, Anderson-Senter covers impossible ground in this memorable, courageous collection.

In Erica Anderson-Senter’s debut full-length collection, Midwestern Poet’s Incomplete Guide to Symbolism, we hear a poet making breathtaking sense of the most unbearable pain in her life—the death of her father, her marriage, her unborn child. The lines in this book are vespers, a prayer to the broken hearted. We are swept up in the beauty of form, the spaces in between, the images of a red-tail hawk, and a cantering horse. The book masterfully hones the sounds of grief, guttural and raw, flowing through a body, a mouth, a soul. She writes, “I am a fern growing, dirt deep in my blood,” and so are we. —Sarah Sandman, author of I Speak Moan and The Sinew of 47 Years

Out of grief, out of longing, out of her ravishing gift for noticing, comes this numinous and memorable debut by Erica Anderson-Senter, whose sensibility has been born out of her gifts for surviving.  As the title tells us, this is a Midwestern book, but what do we mean by that?  Here it means the settings and the vernacular music are tuned to a particular place, with its creatures and soil and people whose lives are at the center of the country, if not the country’s larger consciousness. I adore the rough music of this book, its candid appraisals, and this poet’s fearless descriptions of the sources of fear, sadness, love, life.  —Mark Wunderlich, author of God of Nothingness and The Earth Avails

In Midwestern Poet’s Incomplete Guide to Symbolism, Erica Anderson-Senter’s candid, sensual voice invites us through fields of grief, loss, desire, and myth. Why couldn’t we have loved harder in this universe, / more robustly? the speaker asks. Anderson-Senter bends the laws of physics to imagine different universes, ones in which the dead father is a “white gull, the sea in [his] body.” Although we inhabit other universes, these poems root us deep in Midwestern landscapes as we encounter litanies, psalms, and a lush, unsentimental tenderness that sings out that swift, / startling joy in the same breath as gutting loss. This is an extraordinary, courageous debut collection. —Emily Mohn-Slate, author of The Falls

Anderson-Senter lives and writes in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She teaches high school English and creative writing. Her work has appeared in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, the once CrabFat Magazine, Midwestern Gothic, Off the Coast, and Dialogist, among others. Her chapbook, seven days now, was published by The Dandelion Review. Erica hosts free literary events throughout her city to bring poetry to the public. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing through the Writing Seminars at Bennington College in Vermont. Midwestern Poet’s Incomplete Guide to Symbolism is Anderson-Senter’s debut full-length collection.

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

Published September 14, 2021

Reviews

[Denton]

"Midwestern Poet's Incomplete Guide to Symbolism" perfectly exemplifies how an artist can transform grief and sorrow into beautiful art. Anderson-Senter writes about the lasting loss of her father as well as the ache of miscarriage and the dissolution of marriage. Each poem is expertly crafted to explore the American Midwestern landscape in literal and figurative terms. A beautiful collection from an exciting new voice!

[Valerie]

This will make your heart ache — both for the poet and for familiar Midwestern landscapes we all grew up with. My mind longed for some of the spaces, temperatures, and creatures she writes about — all while viewing these familiar symbols of my own lifelong surroundings in a new light.

The writer is courageous, and you'll find yourself rooting for her throughout.

[Jason]

I loved this book so much. An incredible - and incredibly intimate - collection of poems that touch on life, love, and loss. Beautiful, haunting imagery and a potent mix of the erudite and the conversational. Highly recommended.

[Kari Napier]

Enjoyable read!!

[Birdy Williamson]

Such lovely vulnerable tenderness, reminding me of what it feels like to be in my body and to be human. I am grateful for this book.

[Elizabeth]

A poetry book of unmatched quality and deep, raw humanity.

[Meg Beth]

I loved Erica's work. It's brutally honest and incredibly vulnerable. I felt like I was living these moments with her, a sister in the trenches. You won't regret picking up her book.