The Smoke of Horses

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

In this fascinating new collection by longtime poet Charles Rafferty, evocative prose poems insert strange and mysterious twists into otherwise mundane middle-class scenarios. With wonderful intelligence and imagination, these compact, revelatory poems show us what is possible when we jettison accepted devices of thought for methods that are stranger, and much truer.

Charles Rafferty is the author of six collections of poetry, one collection of stories, and two poetry chapbooks. He lives in Sandy Hook, CT, where he works at a technology research firm, directs the MFA program at Albertus Magnus College, and teaches in the Westport Writers' Workshop.

Reviews

[Rafferty] always imagines interesting scenarios we can read ourselves into, un-self-indulgently saying something keen about our world in language 'sharp as broken vodka bottles.' --Library Journal
"There is a straightforwardness to Rafferty's narrative prose poems that is quite appealing. Existing somewhere between poetry and the very short story, the pieces in The Smoke of Horses are short and self-contained, composed as single-stanza meditations and observational poems on multiple aspects of the world as it is, as it might be, and even, possibly, as it should be." --Rob McLennan

Author Bio

Charles Rafferty is the author of five previous collections of poetry, one collection of short stories, and two poetry chapbooks. His most recent poetry collection is The Unreachable Dog (Steel Toe Books, 2016). He is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism. His short stories have been collected in Saturday Night at Magellan's, and his poems have appeared in The New Yorker, O, Oprah Magazine, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, Cincinnati Review, TriQuarterly, Quarterly West, Massachusetts Review, Poetry Daily, and Verse Daily. He lives in Sandy Hook, CT, where he works at a technology research firm, directs the MFA program at Albertus Magnus College, and is on the faculty of the Westport Writers' Workshop.