Map of the Folded World<\/i>, John Gallaher’s third full-length collection, examines the eros and desperation of suburban America with the precision of a cartographer’s eye. But as its title suggests, it does so according to the polar opposite of convention. More concerned with subtext than narrative, often childlike in tone and propelled by the logic of innocence, Gallaher’s poems don’t shy away from a bottom-line sensibility: \u201cIf you can just run fast enough,\u201d one poem offers, \u201cno one will ever die. \/\/ Do you remember that? \/ And are you better now?\u201d This is a book filled with swimming pools and bridges, houses and families, the ordinary places, objects, and people that connect us. However, these same things are often misunderstood when it comes to their capacity for danger. As Gallaher observes, \u201cIt doesn’t really matter…what \/ you’re drowning in, \/ once you realize you’re drowning.\u201d Map of the Folded World brings us back to a territory that we never knew we had discovered, as it attempts to locate an ever-shifting present on an ever-changing field.<\/p>\n
John Gallaher\u2019s new collection of poems brilliantly fulfills the promise of his first two,<\/i>\u00a0Gentlemen in Turbans, Ladies in Cauls\u00a0and especially\u00a0<\/i>The Little Book of Guesses. His is a unique and distinguished voice in contemporary poetry. In a way I can\u2019t quite explain, the poems give the impression of having written themselves. Perhaps this is what he means when he writes, \u201cI told as much of the truth as I could imagine.\u201d<\/i>
\n\u2014John Ashbery, author of\u00a0A Worldly Country<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Where Shall I Wander<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
As soon as John Gallaher writes that water has a hole in it, I know he’s one poet I want to read. Boats, bridges, rivers, roads, conveyances in these pages of every kind promise transportation\u2014unreliable man-made fantasies\u2014in the Folded World, the one one can imagine fits in a pocket or suitcase or glovebox or field satchel Gallaher’s gentle and decisive imagination takes up, places we haven’t been. I love what he manages to do with verbs. What he does with verbs is a miracle.<\/i>
\n\u2014Dara Wier, author of\u00a0Hat on a Pond<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0Voyages in English<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Readers of this third collection by Gallaher will recognize a few tricks learned from John Ashbery\u2014a multiplicity of chatty voices echoing within the same poem, slightly grouchy associative leaping down the page\u2014but Gallaher does not stop there. \u201cI told as much of the truth as I could imagine,\u201d opens one poem. The same poem ends, \u201cAnd we all shared one thought. \/ One crowded thought.\u201d Within that framework\u2014a world as vast and or limited as an observer’s imagination, and minds that every so often happen to understand each other\u2014Gallaher’s whimsical and empathic poems unfold. The subjects of these poems are stalked by their fantasies (\u201cA film crew will follow you, they promise. And a little \/ dog\u201d) and face the inevitable with a bit of a grin (\u201cAll the old people left and then we were the old people\u201d). Throughout, these lines are filled with pleasure and wisdom.
\n\u2014Publishers Weekly<\/b><\/i><\/p>\nAbout the author<\/h3>\n