Heading West

Author: John Ziegler

Cover: Paperback

Page Count: 54

In this luminous new collection, John Ziegler brings not only his poetic sensibility but also his painterly eye to describe the natural world. The language is fresh and often surprising: “…a hawk riding overhead, backlit wings like soft flames…,” Angus cattle are “fudge-dense silhouettes, against the frozen fog,” an old woman is squatting in slippers “worn smooth as a bench,” and the cello is an “ocean liner leaving a French port.”

Having migrated to the West, he asks: “The light here, is it brighter, cleaner?” And I am willing to bet the image of the man “off to Lamy and the rodeo,” in “At the Station,” will stay with you as it has stayed with me—a whole life’s story in “…favoring the left leg, he pulls himself into the pullman.”

—Steven Deutsch, author of Brooklyn, winner of the Sinclair Prize