Overview

"Linda Nemec Foster's collection of prose poems is a reflection of the world before COVID. All of the pieces are inspired by other parts of the world-Istanbul, Rome, Krakow, Prague, Vienna, Seville-not the familiar landscape of the United States. But, the narrator is definitely not a native of these countries; they are ""the other,"" ""the foreigner,"" the American with a distinct Midwest sensibility who is trying to make sense of a world on the brink of an unforeseen catastrophe. The world as we used to know it."

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"""In Bone Country, Linda Nemec Foster's fractured and melancholic travelogue, the poems (or micro-lyric essays) serve as such luscious and destabilizing portals through which the cities of our world are passed, emerging on the other side slick with luminescence-more amazing, more sad, holy, essential, and strange. These poems are magic tricks and ghostly reminders: missives from a not-so-distant, but unreachable past, from places that feel both ultra-real, and wildly imaginary. Not since I read Calvino's Invisible Cities for the first time, or discovered the early films of Jim Jarmusch, have I felt the actual world so beautifully defamiliarized, have I been so mystified by the seemingly quotidian dirt under my feet."" -Matthew Gavin Frank, author of Flight of the Diamond Smugglers ""In Linda Nemec Foster's Bone Country, each keenly composed and compressed piece seems at once fragmented and yet self-contained. It's the speed and addictive rhythm with which they reel by that transforms this collection into a visionary travelogue."" -Stuart Dybek, author of Ecstatic Cahoots and Paper Lantern ""Bone Country, Linda Nemec Foster's thirteenth collection, shimmers with consummate artistry. This treasury of gorgeous and evocative writing is the work of a virtuoso, consistently compelling and a must-read, especially for connoisseurs of the prose poem."" -Clare MacQueen, editor/curator of MacQueen's Quinterly ""Based on haunting chance encounters, photographs, and journal entries, the accomplished prose poems in Bone Country are Linda Nemec Foster's postcards to the world from her extensive travels, especially in Central and Eastern Europe-a region that reflects her heritage and to which she is deeply connected. Some poems contain the richly layered palette of paintings and tapestries; others capture the briefest lyrical moments: a tree filled with stork nests against the bare sky, the color of a necktie purchased for one's beloved. Still others introduce characters ranging from a perfume salesgirl to an emaciated tour guide to a streetcleaner who moonlights as a performance artist. Recreating the delirious, dreamlike experience of travel across time zones, Foster sometimes sees loved ones in the faces of strangers halfway across the world. She is the ideal traveling companion: compassionate, smart, and keenly observant. Let her take your hand as you travel through Bone Country. You'll return changed, in the best possible ways."" -Kathleen McGookey, author of Instructions for My Imposter ""Like a lyrical 'missed connections' column of elegantly detailed encounters across the globe, the prose poems of Bone Country tantalize and explore the dislocation of traveling through time and mind and place. Our final destination is the dizzying, magical sensation of living as both stranger and familiar friend, of ultimately seeing that we have become 'a single line of pure horizon connecting everything.'"" -Leslie Pietrzyk, author of Admit This to No One"

In Bone Country, Linda Nemec Foster's fractured and melancholic travelogue, the poems (or micro-lyric essays) serve as such luscious and destabilizing portals through which the cities of our world are passed, emerging on the other side slick with luminescence-more amazing, more sad, holy, essential, and strange. These poems are magic tricks and ghostly reminders: missives from a not-so-distant, but unreachable past, from places that feel both ultra-real, and wildly imaginary. Not since I read Calvino's Invisible Cities for the first time, or discovered the early films of Jim Jarmusch, have I felt the actual world so beautifully defamiliarized, have I been so mystified by the seemingly quotidian dirt under my feet. -Matthew Gavin Frank, author of Flight of the Diamond Smugglers In Linda Nemec Foster's Bone Country, each keenly composed and compressed piece seems at once fragmented and yet self-contained. It's the speed and addictive rhythm with which they reel by that transforms this collection into a visionary travelogue. -Stuart Dybek, author of Ecstatic Cahoots and Paper Lantern Bone Country, Linda Nemec Foster's thirteenth collection, shimmers with consummate artistry. This treasury of gorgeous and evocative writing is the work of a virtuoso, consistently compelling and a must-read, especially for connoisseurs of the prose poem. -Clare MacQueen, editor/curator of MacQueen's Quinterly Based on haunting chance encounters, photographs, and journal entries, the accomplished prose poems in Bone Country are Linda Nemec Foster's postcards to the world from her extensive travels, especially in Central and Eastern Europe-a region that reflects her heritage and to which she is deeply connected. Some poems contain the richly layered palette of paintings and tapestries; others capture the briefest lyrical moments: a tree filled with stork nests against the bare sky, the color of a necktie purchased for one's beloved. Still others introduce characters ranging from a perfume salesgirl to an emaciated tour guide to a streetcleaner who moonlights as a performance artist. Recreating the delirious, dreamlike experience of travel across time zones, Foster sometimes sees loved ones in the faces of strangers halfway across the world. She is the ideal traveling companion: compassionate, smart, and keenly observant. Let her take your hand as you travel through Bone Country. You'll return changed, in the best possible ways. -Kathleen McGookey, author of Instructions for My Imposter Like a lyrical 'missed connections' column of elegantly detailed encounters across the globe, the prose poems of Bone Country tantalize and explore the dislocation of traveling through time and mind and place. Our final destination is the dizzying, magical sensation of living as both stranger and familiar friend, of ultimately seeing that we have become 'a single line of pure horizon connecting everything.' -Leslie Pietrzyk, author of Admit This to No One

Author Information

Linda Nemec Foster has published twelve collections of poetry, including The Blue Divide, Amber Necklace from Gdańsk, Talking Diamonds, and The Lake Michigan Mermaid (2019 Michigan Notable Book). The first Poet Laureate of Grand Rapids, Michigan (2003-2005), Foster is the founder of the Contemporary Writers Series at Aquinas College.

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