Michele Battiste

The town of Elsewhere has been lost to time. Hidden by a remote mountain, its history and townspeople have become subjects of ghost stories and cautionary bedtime tales. Each of the 50 cards and poems tell the story of the forgotten town: the history of its disappearance, the ghosts that haunt its streets, and the monsters that linger in the woods and the lake. Looking to Elsewhere, we discover our own strengths and fears, ambitions and dreams, and the dark places that hold us back. The guidebook pairs each poem and card with an oracle for an interactive divinatory and literary experience. The possibilities of Elsewhere are endless, and the possibilities here are in our own hands.

Two towns--one unnamed, one called Ruination--share an uneasy relationship with the river that separates them. Within their borders, the aftermath of a murder lingers in unexpected ways. A marriage disintegrates. A waitress dies. A flood threatens.

With dark humor and a direct gaze, Battiste explores the inscrutable and the everyday, uncovering the potential for catastrophe in both. Foremost a book of sorrows, Waiting for the Wreck to Burn spurns attempts at healing. Instead, the poems embrace the dislocation of grief and the absurdity of starting over.

The voices of a soldier, his wife, and his daughter interweave to tell the story of Soviet controlled, post-WWII Hungary as forces move the country toward revolution. These documentary and narrative poems expose corrupt politics, secret police, agent provocateurs, and family secrets. Extensively researched, UPRISING provides a revealing glimpse into life behind the iron curtain.

When literature is landscape, poems are maps. In INK FOR AN ODD CARTOGRAPHY, Battiste takes on the poetics of geography, examining the influence landscape and place have on people and their decisions. She investigates the charged distance between individuals, the space where all the action--and interaction--takes place. The final section of the book, "Mapping the Spaces Between," is a linked series of epistolary poems in which a slightly neurotic speaker addresses her lover. Though the poems begin tenderly, things quickly go awry.