For the Mountain Laurel - (VQR Poetry) by John Casteen (Paperback)

About the Book

In his second collection, Casteen moves inward from the physical labor and vernacular culture that shaped his first book, Free Union, yet continues to focus on landscape and human relationships. These poems dwell in the music of language, the hard truths of those who are no longer young, and the pleasures of the reflective life.

Book Synopsis

In his second collection, Casteen moves inward from the physical labor and vernacular culture that shaped his first book, Free Union, yet continues to focus on landscape and human relationships. With poems arranged in the order in which they were completed (which in large part reflects the order in which they were first written), Casteen presents a poetic record of the experiences of solitude, marriage, fatherhood, loss, and recovery. The Carolina chickadee can be heard in this work, but so can Emmylou Harris singing with Gram Parsons; these poems dwell in the music of language, the hard truths of those who are no longer young, and the pleasures of the reflective life.

Review Quotes

Much of the pleasure of this collection lies in how it reintroduces the reader to the outside. Casteen unlocks the natural world with perfect, precise phrases.

--Charlottesville News and Arts

About the Author

JOHN CASTEEN teaches at Sweet Briar College. He lives in Earlysville, Virginia. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, his poems have appeared in Ploughshares, the Georgia Review, the Iowa Review, Shenandoah, and other journals. He has contributed prose to Slate, VQR, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.