Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our

Crab OrcharD Series
In Poetry
FIRST BOOK AWARD
Strange
Valentine
Poems by
A. Loudermilk
“Like many first collections concerned
with the broad categories body and
place, Strange Valentine carries a
sense of urgency: these poems had to
be written. But unlike many urgentfeeling
first books, the language in
these poems is playful and interesting.
A vernacular sensibility traces back
to the locations the poems depict—
trailer parks, bedrooms, hospital
rooms, church—and there finds
the sources of a fierce love.…They
come at you like a country song,
layered with cockiness, longing, raw
sweetness, heartache, and just plain
heart. Unafraid to go over the top or
to dig deep, they are honest without
being too earnest.”—Julia Kasdorf,
author of Eve’s Striptease
96 pages, ISBN 0-8093-2661-2
$14.95 paper
2004 Winner
Copublished with Crab Orchard Review
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