The Lazarus Project

By K.C. Hanson

The Lazarus Project is a collection of poems based on photos found in antique stores, junk shops, and over the internet, separated from their history, lost in boxes, drawers, or attics until their families are gone or whoever finds them no longer knows who they were or what they did. In a sense they represent the history which the poet Thomas McGrath said we threw out the back of the wagon train on our way out west. K.C. Hanson gives voice to the people in the pictures—rescues them, and us, from time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: North Star Press of St. Cloud
• Release date: Oct 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9780878398423

K.C. Hanson

K.C. Hanson received his MFA from Minnesota State University Moorhead, and is a winner of the Rachel Baker Award for Creative Writing. His work has been featured in The Blue Bear Review, ­Ginosko, Red Weather, and other magazines. He now lives in Moorhead, Minnesota, where he teaches English at Minnesota State Community and Technical College and North Dakota State University. 

Book preview

pictures:

Foreword

The Lazarus Project is very much just that, an attempt to wake the dead. It is a resurrection of voices lost in the American past due to death of a blood line, literally or figuratively, and a celebration of the art that has allowed what little we have of these people’s history to come forth in time. On the Internet, where fully half of these pictures were purchased, they are often tagged as instant ancestors. Somehow this is very telling of our culture. My intent, though, is to make it true—to make of my readers, at least, literary descendants of these people.

Because these photos represent family and history we have lost, I have spent a great deal of time running each photo through a Google image search—and every marking through an extensive textual search—in an attempt to discover any holders of copyright. I was lucky enough to find the descendants of some of the photographers, and to gain a set of names for one photo. Though most of the photographs are too old for it to matter, my search did not reveal a copyright holder for any of the images. They are printed here as orphaned photos. Most of the people in them remain a complete mystery. If you recognize any of them, please contact me. My greatest desire is that at least some of them might find their way home. My email is [e-mail].

What little I know about the pictures is listed along with the credits.

– K.C.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

–William Shakespeare

Before the Steeple

We stood on the cusp of a great new world, balanced

like the long row of cars, black with envy,

tipping