Ascent

By Matt Bialer

For a few days in the fall of 1903, the little town of Van Meter, Iowa was terrorized at night by an 8 foot tall winged creature. Nobody had a camera to take a picture but the story made the local newspapers, including The Des Moines Daily News. Journalists made fun of Van Meter's citizens and declared they were creating a hoax or were the victims of a practical joke-or they were all crazy. But these were respectable doctors, businessmen, and bankers who witnessed and shot at this Thing which did not flinch from bullets. What was this creature? Was it something that came from Hell itself? In this epic poem, Matt Bialer, poet of the weird and paranormal, explores the possibilities of myth as a reflection of the human condition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: JournalStone
• Release date: Sep 9, 2014
• ISBN: 9781940161839

Book preview

PRAISE FOR MATTHEW BAILER

Matthew Bialer’s epic historical, lyrically explosive, narrative poem, ASCENT, about what happens when ‘a flash of light’ hits the town of Van Meter is immediately generative. That is, it generates speed and tenderness and devotion—to a vision, Bialer’s vision—which is superlative and, ultimately, generous. This poem is a gift of the imagination rooted in ‘a happening’—a creature, a creature!—because Bialer has figured out his own way of telling a story through poetry. His cadences coupled with his imagery allow the reader to be swallowed up completely. This poem is a visitation in as much as ‘the creature’ that visited Van Meter in 1903 was a visitation. The difference, though, is that Bialer’s poem is about the beauty that comes with mystery and not the fear that can take hold when something unknown enters the psyche, the field of what is and what is not. Whatever you do, hold your breath, take your time, and become swept up in Bialer’s illumination and brilliance.

—Matthew Lippman

author of AMERICAN CHEW and MONKEY BARS

When everyone else seems to be exploring their own navels or has just figured out that language doesn’t mean anything, Bialer takes our hand and pulls us outward into a