In The Pain Trader, James Fowler creates timeless narratives around the people, history, and landmarks of rural America. Divided into &ldquoHereabouts&rdquo (the Ozark region) and &ldquoThereabouts&rdquo (a broader area), his 48 poems find meaning and beauty in the seemingly ordinary&mdashfrom cheap roadside attractions (&quotIQ Zoo&quot) to an impromptu chivaree. (&ldquoOzark Yarn&rdquo), to local resentment of &ldquoMr. [Woodrow] Wilson&rsquos war&rdquo (&ldquoOver Here&rdquo), to a set of &ldquoMountain Airs&rdquo documenting a long and mostly uneventful marriage.The Pain Trader opens with pioneers settling in the Ozarks, aware of the Indian cultures and the (Louisiana) Purchase. Fowler&rsquos quiet, often wry, voice guides readers through Ozark perspectives on the Civil War, the Sultana disaster (&ldquoAftermath&rdquo), saltpeter mining (&ldquoBelow, Above&rdquo), and sundowner laws (&ldquoSundown&rdquo). Eureka Springs gets an especially memorable treatment in &ldquoEureka,&rdquo as a place in which layers of past are still accessible under the current wash of artist colonies and Bible belters.From the titular poem, &ldquoThe Pain Trader,&rdquo readers feel the ordinary become something to be revered. They watch a peddlar/artist listening to his customers as he carves &ldquoAll this while a shape emerges,/carved, etched creaturely perhaps/blossoming stark, like crystals./A thing of power rough hewn.&rdquo These lines could describe Fowler&rsquos poetry, &ldquoa thing...

Binding: Paperback;88 pages; Publisher: Golden Antelope Press; Classification: DCF; Weight: 248 g; Dimensions: 139 x 216 x 9

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