Seed Thieves, Poems (Heftet (myke permer))

Robert Fanning is a graduate of the University of Michigan and Sarah Lawrence College. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, and the Atlantic Review. His chapbook, Old Bright Wheel, was the winner of the Ledge Press Chapbook Award.

In dramatic lyrics and narratives, "The Seed Thieves" explores the mundane and the extramundane. Across a spectrum of varying styles and voices, readers experience a man startled to prayer by fire-flies, a teenage girl falling from a highway overpass, a drunk circling his lawn in a tractor, children scavenging through the treasures of a shattered pinata. Grappling with death, love, God, and existence in a world where "even lifting our hands to pray / we disturb the air," these poems turn toward death and ruin in search of real light and redemption.As Laura Kasischke writes in her endorsement, "Robert Fanning's poems originate from some uncanny place between a fevered imagination and a keen intellect. They are musical, dangerous poems - both sparing and wild. This poet searches for language and meaning in a mysterious world. What the poems offer instead, is more mystery. More dream. More strange and lovely imagery and music. Robert Fanning is the real thing - a brave traveler in the sensory world, the subconscious, the realms of the dead and the very much alive - he has emerged with these brilliant, startling, compelling poems."For poets and seasoned readers of poetry, "The Seed Thieves" offers a spectrum of tightly-crafted poems written with close attention to imagery, prosody and sound. For those new to poetry or estranged from the art, these highly accessible poems are striking in their universality and emotional resonance. All readers will appreciate the unique cinematic imagery and vivid, lyrical language.