{"product_id":"railmans-son-paperback","title":"Railman's Son - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eLeroy N. Sorenson\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNarrative poems about working class life in a small prairie town. A protest book about the damages and sorrow poverty causes on humans interweaved with tragedy and personal loss. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e**********************\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003cem\u003eRailman's Son\u003c\/em\u003e, LeRoy Sorenson\u003cstrong\u003e \u003c\/strong\u003ereturns to some of his driving obsessions: the brutal worlds of the rail yards and meat plants, the bars, the legacy of addiction and poverty, and the struggles of those caught up in the generational trauma of family silences and violence. This is a moving and insightful collection that follows a tormented, compassionate speaker as he seeks to understand the world he has inherited, who refuses to make excuses or find easy redemption; a speaker who can reach the end of his journey through these poems and claim, with heartbreaking honesty and longing: \"How I, now, \/listen to the silence that has never\/left me, aching for a life\/other than the one I had.\/\/How little there was.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e -Jude Nutter\u003c\/strong\u003e, author of \u003cem\u003eI Wish I Had a Heart Like Yours, Walt Whitman, \u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e Dead Reckoning\u003c\/em\u003e, and two other collections.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThese poems made of hard prairie light keep faith with the past by refusing to look away. In spare, lean lyrics, Sorenson's work scours the meat plants, rotgut bars and railroad yards of small Dakota towns. Fearless, precise, missing nothing, Mr. Sorenson insists on saying what happened, however difficult that might be. In looking so clearly at ourselves, \u003cem\u003eRailman's Son\u003c\/em\u003e illuminates the lives we lead, which in itself is a kind of revelation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e -Mark Conway\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLeRoy Sorenson's gritty, visceral poems in \u003cem\u003eThe Railman's Son\u003c\/em\u003e are deeply informed by the wounding of class. In this, Sorenson is brother to poets like Philip Levine and James Wright, daring to break the silence on an \"ism\" kept by many otherwise progressive peers. Rarely in recent poetry do we encounter so many vivid details of the traditional working class life. \"There is nothing so pure as work,\" Sorenson says without apparent irony, yet work is also what chews up and spits out so many lives. Thus this book becomes a kind of ambivalent elegy to an older way of being in the world. In harnessing such tensions, Sorenson frighteningly reads \"the shorthand of American rage,\" of which we should all take heed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e -Thomas R. Smith\u003c\/strong\u003e, author of \u003cem\u003eStorm Island\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 42\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 0.1 x 8.5 x 5.5 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e March 12, 2021\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42100031619207,"sku":"9781646624515","price":21.58,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0601\/2623\/2711\/files\/f8f8e6e64688251f12b6fdb45bc9aaa1.webp?v=1732380318","url":"https:\/\/booksby.splitshops.com\/products\/railmans-son-paperback","provider":"Books by splitShops","version":"1.0","type":"link"}