Ghost Fargo

by Paula Cisewski, Franz Wright (Contributor)

Paula Cisewski guides us through a landscape that resonates with the fugitive and far-gone, the ghosts of what Whitman calls our "go-befores." A brother vanishes, and gives rise to a second city of the mind, in which "the dead and the missing" remain citizens, in which Keats's negative capability is the sheriff in town. Cisewski constructs a swaggering, tender, Carneyesque Fargo of the mind ("Do we love Heaven more than God?"), a place that relentlessly arrests and releases our loved ones. This is a book of poems that fares forever forward, quixotic, in the fullest sense of the word: picaresque, curious, errant, and hilarious. In a midwestern odyssey at once metaphysical and emphatically real, Cisewski confronts (as Nancy Cunard once wrote) "every windmill in a landscape of windmills."

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published May 11, 2010

About the author

Paula Cisewski's sixth collection of poems, The Becoming Game, was published by Hanging Loose Press in June 2025. She is also the author of Ceremonies for No Repair (Beauty School Editions, LLC), Quitter​, winner of Diode Editions' Book Prize, The Threatened Everything, Ghost Fargo (selected by Franz Wright for the Nightboat Poetry Prize), Upon Arrival, and several chapbooks, including the lyric prose Misplaced Sinister. She has been awarded fellowships from organizations including the Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, The Oberholtzer Foundation, and the Minnesota State Arts Board. Her poems and hybrid works appear regularly in literary magazines such as Columba, 32 Poems, Plume, Posit, Brevity; Vinyl; Eleven Eleven; diode; Ping Pong; Matter Monthly; Forklift, OH; A Handsome Journal; Resistance Journal; Blackbird; The BOMBlog; REVOLUTIONesque; Everyday Genius; and failbetter.com. She teaches, both academically and privately, and makes printed matter, collage, and assemblage.


Here's Grace Cavalieri's review of Quitter in The Washington Independent Review of Books:
[http://www.washingtonindependentrevie...]

Here's Jordan Davis's review of Ghost Fargo in the Constant Critic:
[http://www.constantcritic.com/jordan_...]

Here's a first book interview about Upon Arrival with Kate Greenstreet: [http://www.kickingwind.com/022407.html]

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Paula Cisewski's poems in Ghost Fargo resonated deeply with my experiences in and out of Fargo. Cisewski's playful style allowed for opportunities to glance the familiar from an unexpected angle. This collection would likely strike a chord with anyone who has ever left a place (but not really).

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

from Ghost Fargo by Paula Cisewski:

"Cape Disappointment, WA"

Is that how you are these days?
Like the Graveyard of the Pacific?
I am a bit.
-Anne de Marcken


This shore shall be named
after my disappointment so that

my disappointment can jut out
into the vast ocean.

Future travelers will build
a lighthouse to warn passing ships

of my disappointment, which is
a threat on foggy nights.

Lewis and Clark will plant
a flag proudly atop,

though I had claimed
my disappointment first.

Troops will arrive
to fortify my lush disappointment,

which supports a bounty of vegetation,
thus allowing wildlife to thrive.

Eventually, a national park will be
erected around my disappointment

and tourists will flock. On legal holidays,
on Sundays after church, families

will picnic along the sands.
I should be—but how can I be—glad

for them. My disappointment
has erased all our names.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another stellar collection from one of my favorite contemporary poets.

[Jena · Rating 1 out of 5]

This isn't a reflection on Paula Cisweski in any way (at least, there was nothing wrong with this book) I just really don't like this kind of poetry. I found myself struggling through it. Someone who likes poetry with a stream-of-consciousness feel to it will probably like this book much more than I did.

[Stacie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I too grew up in Fargo and had my own ghosts to face. This is very well written and thought provoking. I also found that it engaged my emotions.