Prairie Thaw series showcases poetry of Thom Caraway
It’s time for the English Department’s first Prairie Thaw reading of Spring 2008! Thom Caraway, soon-to-be-graduated English doctoral student and published poet, will read from his book, "A Visitor’s Guide to North Dakota," at 5 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22, in 300 Merrifield Hall. Copies of his book will be available for sale at the reception which follows on the first floor of Merrifield Hall.
Below is a poem excerpted from Thom’s book:
Eastbound on the Empire Builder
You see the backs of buildings,
the yellow-lit loading docks, heavy men
slogging pallets at 1 a.m. Warehouse bars
and industrial parks, brick stacks
shouting steam at low skies.
Fork-lift drivers load trucks
with tomorrow’s commerce.
You pass whole cities of ruined cars
and scrap iron, an empire of delivery trucks.
What a strange congress they make.
The culvert under I-90 has been dry for years
and still the trains whistle past.
And I am eastbound,
soon for the twisting wind of North Dakota,
where these men have never been,
but dream of in their dreams
of uninterrupted sky. A world built
of unknown language. When they wake,
they look for the low mountains
surrounding Spokane, know that some
terrible landscape lies beyond.
-- Jennifer Groucutt, Graduate Teaching Assistant, English, jennifer.groucutt@und.nodak.edu, 701-777-2374 |