Overview

Bronxville, New York. Where Lee Stockdale finds shelter after a hurricane of tragedy blows his family out of Miami. As the new kid in town, he tries to fit in under the roof of a stepfather who regrets he came with the package. The secret of his father's suicide, wrapped around the universal pain of being thirteen, assures that life pretty much sucks, and Stockdale rides through Bronxville on a Depression Bus until he grasps that he lives a train ride away from The Greatest City in the World. Bronxville-he claims it as home, whether or not it claims him.

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Reviews

The Westchester enclave of faux-Tudor houses and perfected lawns has been invaded in Lee Stockdale's darkly comic book, by the anxious dreams of a bewildered, newly fatherless young man who sees right through the surface to the murk below. Ironic, matter-of-fact in the weirdest circumstances, these poems catch just how it feels to be the kid who'll never fit in, and the adult dreamer who carries that youthful insight into a life. -Mark Doty In this poetry of endless possibilities, Lee Stockdale has crafted a trickster world made fresh with longing and stocked with everything a traveler could ever need. Even coyotes, singing pigs, and boys who ""want so much more,"" take the chance to unburden themselves night after night. As the energy of creation persists, so does the speaker throwing back time, ""witnessing the diligent work of the dead."" Guided by hope and preparation, the poet finds praise in strange places and turns deserts into regenerative power stations. -Mildred Kiconco Barya It's hard to be wise and in love at the same time, but Lee Stockdale manages to find just the right tone as he navigates the reader around the real Bronxville neighborhood that he survived, and the mythical one that has grown prominently in the redemptive forces of his memory and imagination. Poetry washes the retinue of the everyday from our eyes as we plow through the attics, basements, schools, and alleys carved into our creative subconscious. There have been many poets of place in the American canon. Levine and his Detroit, Bishop and her Nova Scotia, Frost and his New England, Brooks and her Chicago. Stockdale invites us to climb aboard his vivid Depression Bus and narrates as he drives. You will never find a more loving tour guide. -Keith Flynn

Author Information

Lee Stockdale finds shelter in Bronxville after tragedy blows his family out of Miami. His work has appeared in Poetry Review, The Guardian, Ekphrastic Review, and other journals. His collection, Gorilla, was published by Main Street Rag. Awards include the United Kingdom National Poetry Prize and Montana Prize for Humor.

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