Eastern Washington scablands
Spokane Indian and poet Sherman Alexie publishes a new poem, ‘Unkissed’, in this week’s edition of The Stranger, Seattle’s alternative weekly newspaper, which I still happen to read a decade after moving to D.C. (And not just any poem, but a Fibonacci sequence poem!)
Long-time fan of Mr. Alexie, ever since reading his book of poems and stories, The Business of Fancydancing, during high school; The Summer of Black Widows, years after, in a snowy Hudson Valley cottage. His poems always lead me back to a mental collage of my own eastern Washington days: cumulus clouds strewn carelessly about a faded demin sky, endless plateaus of alternating desert and farmland seen from a car window, drifting across I-90 to or from wherever there was to be.