{"title":"Christian Barter","description":"\u003cp\u003eChristian Barter is the author of three books of poetry: \u003cem\u003eIn Someone Else’s House\u003c\/em\u003e, winner of the 2014 Maine Literary Award; \u003cem\u003eThe Singers I Prefer\u003c\/em\u003e, a Lenore Marshall Prize finalist; and \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.boaeditions.org\/collections\/new-releases\/products\/bye-bye-land\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eBye-Bye Land\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e, winner of the Isabella Gardner Award from BOA Editions. His poetry appears widely in such places as \u003cem\u003ePloughshares, The Literary Review, Epoch, Georgia Review,\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe American Scholar\u003c\/em\u003e, and has been featured on \u003cem\u003eThe Writer’s Almanac, Poetry Daily\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003ePBS Newshour\u003c\/em\u003e. He has been a resident fellow at Yaddo and The McDowell Colony, and a Hodder Fellow in poetry at Princeton University. For more than 25 years, he has worked as a stone worker, rigger, arborist, equipment operator, and supervisor at Acadia National Park, where he served as the first-ever Poet Laureate. For more about Christian Barter, visit \u003ca href=\"http:\/\/www.christianbarterpoetry.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" title=\"Visit Christian Barter's homepage\"\u003ewww.christianbarterpoetry.com\u003c\/a\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"bye-bye-land","title":"Bye-Bye Land","description":"\u003ch4\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSigned copies available in limited quantity\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWinner of the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis award-winning book-length poem is a medley of voices in dialogue with each other—overheard, remembered, and internal—that represents a mind at work as it considers the destructiveness of human nature, the hypocrisy and artifice of the American dream. Voices from personal conversations, political speeches, Guantanamo detainees, news reports, and famous poets fill these pages, ultimately capturing a world of disrupted beauty and unrealized potential.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eExcerpt from \u003cem\u003eBye-Bye Land\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eAnd so we went there to the Warm Land.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eWe passed by the projects and the Quickie Marts\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eand we wound through the looping miles of suburbs\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ewhere every house and hairdo looked the same,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eand I saw how the people of that land were\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eand I thought they were not able to do much for themselves—\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ethey were forced to leave their homes all day\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eand their children played behind metal fences.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eAnd I saw how the trees were\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eand how the ground was covered with black tar.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eAnd I saw the looks on the faces of these people.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eWe passed down into the hollows of a train station,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003einto a cave where the trains jarred the floor\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eand I saw how these people were,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ehow close they were pressed together,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ehow afraid they were to smile at each other,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003efor the killers walked among them\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eand those who would sell the tally machines\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eto count up the souls in the camps \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eand those who waited for the others to get sick\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eso they could come for their houses walked among them\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eand those whom anger had touched too deeply,\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003ewho had crouched deep into the foxholes of themselves\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eor crawled deep into the wooden horse of sadness\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eand those who would watch you gang-raped from the window\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003eand those who saw the demon everywhere\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003elonging only for one chance at its throat—\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch4\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePraise for \u003cem\u003eBye-Bye Land\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h4\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003eChristian Barter\u003cspan\u003e’\u003c\/span\u003es brilliant song of ourselves is Walt Whitman filtered through \u003ci\u003eThe Waste Land\u003c\/i\u003e. Bold and broken-hearted and up-to-the-minute, it is a visionary elegy for America in dozens of dead-on voices you hear every day on the train, in the halls, across the breakfast table. \u003ci\u003eBye-Bye Land\u003c\/i\u003e virtually reads itself to you; all you have to do is listen.\u003cspan\u003e”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—James Richardson\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003eWhat a good poet Christian Barter is, whose poems make you believe—a difficult artistic feat—that poetry is an utterly natural act. Reading them is like being handed a set of x-rays in the doctor’s office; you look at them, dumbfounded at how familiar these blurry shapes are—\u003cspan\u003e‘\u003c\/span\u003eOh yes,\u003cspan\u003e’\u003c\/span\u003e you think, \u003cspan\u003e‘\u003c\/span\u003ethat is my youth, that is my brain, those are my dreams, that is my heart—\u003cspan\u003e’”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e—Tony Hoagland\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003e“\u003c\/span\u003eThere are poets who can bring us to tears; there are poets who can make us ponder vast societal and existential issues; there are poets whose irony moves us at once to ruefulness and to dark laughter; there are poets who fruitfully challenge our intellectual capacities. But Christian Barter is that rarest of writers, the one who can make us react in all these ways, and often simultaneously.\u003cspan\u003e”\u003c\/span\u003e \u003cstrong\u003e—Sydney Lea\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch6\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/h6\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e© BOA Editions, Ltd. 2017\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOA Editions, Ltd.","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":26036752201,"sku":"9781942683353","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Paperback (Signed)","offer_id":12462849294417,"sku":"9781942683354","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/products\/ByeByeLand_FinalFront.jpg?v=1527683194"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0982\/0178\/collections\/CBarter_AuthorPhoto_WEB.JPG?v=1475864843","url":"https:\/\/shop.boaeditions.org\/collections\/christian-barter.oembed","provider":"Boa Editions","version":"1.0","type":"link"}