Ghost town odes
Subtitle: poetry
By: Matt Schumacher
Edition: First trade paperback edition.
Series: Pacific Northwest writers series; Pacific Northwest writers series
Publisher: Redbat Books
Published: 2016
Place of publication: La Grande, Or
Language: eng
Number of pages: 131
ISBN-13: 9780997154924
Copyright date: 2016
Subjects: American poetry
Notes: Title from cover.

Schumacher's latest book is divided into four sections: Oregon Idylls; Ghost Town Odes; Lost Letters from the West; and Pastoral with Bestiary. This expansive and inclusive collection is haunted by "Gazebos of supposed ghosts": hard-drinking miners, gamblers, radical labor activists like Big Bill Haywood, assorted odd birds (both fowl and human) and Native Americans like Chief Joseph, who declares in one poem: "Our nations could not be bounded, banned, or trapped, / were never made for white men's maps." However, as a white man himself, Matt Schumacher turns out to be a very capable poetic cartographer tracing an entire region's storied past and present.