The Lame God

By M. B. McLatchey

Winner of 2013 May Swenson Poetry Award
In The Lame God, author M. B. McLatchey reminds us of the inevitable bond between art and empathy. With a controlled language that finds its echo chamber in the immortal themes and characters of classical literature, this courageous work accompanies the author on her journey through a parent’s anguish in the face of a horrific crime. Using the art of poetry she gives voice to a suffering—and a love—that might otherwise go unheard.   The May Swenson Poetry Award, an annual competition named for May Swenson, honors her as one of America's most provocative and vital writers. During her long career, Swenson was loved and praised by writers from virtually every school of American poetry. She left a legacy of fifty years of writing when she died in 1989. She is buried in Logan, Utah, her hometown.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Utah State University Press
• Release date: Aug 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9780874219098

Book preview

The Lame God

May Swenson

Poetry Award Series

Volume 16

The Lame God

poems by

M. B. McLatchey

Utah State University Press

Logan

© 2013 M. B. McLatchey

Foreword © 2013 Edward Field

Published by Utah State University Press

An imprint of University Press of Colorado

5589 Arapahoe Avenue, Suite 206C

Boulder, Colorado 80303

The University Press of Colorado is a proud member of

the Association of American University Presses.

The University Press of Colorado is a cooperative publishing enterprise supported, in part, by Adams State University, Colorado State University, Fort Lewis College, Metropolitan State University of Denver, Regis University, University of Colorado, University of Northern Colorado, Utah State University, and Western State Colorado University.

Manufactured in the United States of America

∞ This paper meets the requirements of the ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

Publication credits appear on page 66, which constitutes an extension of this copyright page.

Cover art Hephaestus II by Scott Eaton. Used by permission.

Cover series design by Barbara Yale-Read

ISBN 9780874219074 (cloth)

ISBN 9780874219081 (paper)

ISBN 9780874219098 (ebook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McLatchey, M. B. The Lame God : poems / by M. B. McLatchey. pages cm. — (May Swenson Poetry Award Series ; Volume 16) ISBN 978-0-87421-907-4 (hardback) — ISBN 978-0-87421-908-1 (paper) — ISBN 978-0-87421-909-8 (ebook) I. Title. PS3613.C574L36 2013 811'.6—dc23 2013030755.

For John

Ille colit terras, illi mea carmina curae

—Virgil

Contents

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Foreword by Edward Field

Preface

1-800-THE-LOST

The Rescue

What the Neighbors Heard

Amber Alert

Mandatum

Apology

On the Proper Care of Orchids

The Retrieval

Museum

Lullaby for Her Brother

Kaleidoscope

On Recognizing Saints

Morning Offering

The Golden Bough

At the Grieving Parents Meeting

Demeter’s Side

Snow Globe

The Rape of Chryssipus

I See You

River of Forgetfulness

Bingo Night for Missing and Exploited Children

A Glass of Absinthe

Catharsis

The Boy’s Lament

Little Fits

Mythology

Mother’s Day

Requiem

Song of Daphnis

Loose Ends

Sanriku

Teaching the Tragedies

Girl at Piano

Oaths, Curses, Blessings

Melville’s Reader

Joseph Dreams Two Dreams

Leaving the Mainland

The Ventriloquist

Songs of the Immortals

The Eviction

The Arrangement

Aubade

The Lame God

Against Elegies

Acknowledgments

About the Author

The May Swenson Poetry Award

Foreword

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Let me warn the reader: it takes courage to read this book. This heartbreaking sequence of poems on the abduction of a daughter hit me like a ton of bricks, and I had to put it aside several times. But what courage it took to write it. Though there are many poems on grief, and even on crime—websites are devoted to them—I have never come across a book of poetry like this before.

I hesitate to mention a popular genre like true crime in relation to the high art of poetry, but The Lame God, like that genre, speaks with such power because its subject matter is so unspeakable. While M. B. McLatchey’s lyricism here seems indifferent to narrative and this collection recoils from