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P poemsby E G poetry “Elton Glaser’s PelicanTracks offers us an intimate and intricate portrait of gritty, downhome life in Louisiana.The characters and places that populate this book reveal lives thoroughly lived and remind us that whoever and whatever surrounds us quietly invades us—in the best and perhaps worst sense of the word—and, finally, becomes us. Glaser observes ravenously and lovingly; these poems are beautifully detailed. In fact, reading these poems is not like reading really, more like watching and listening—the way we might engage a good film.There is no frivolous decoration here, no breading, just meat—no foam, just beer: dark and rich with a sharp bite after every swig.This is a singing that is both playfully and painfully desperate—like good blues, an embodied music that knows how to move gracefully between hard times and fat times.” —Tim Seibles, author of Hammerlock and Hurdy-Gurdy “These beautifully made poems—rich as redeye gravy, crystalline as Ohio ice—will delight anyone seeking a fresh understanding of the American soul. Elton Glaser is a stellar lyric poet, a true witness to the immanence that is everywhere. He’s also a folklorist, weaving vivid stories of his native New Orleans: the music of the ‘Only Female Cornetist in theTenderloin’ and the ‘Worst High School Marching Band in the South.’The pine straw and fire ants, dirty rice and champagne are here, as are ‘Mister Jelly Lord, the creole snoot’ and ‘Miss Moment . . . hamhock of a woman.’ Glaser is a national treasure. His poems are at once gritty and reverent, profound and comic. If you worry for the fate of literature, read this book and take heart.”—Alice Fulton, author of Felt and Sensual Math Elton Glaser, a native of New Orleans, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Akron and editor of the Akron Series in Poetry. He has previously published four full-length collections of poetry: Relics,Tropical Depressions, Color Photographs of the Ruins, and Winter Amnesties. His poems have appeared in the 1995,1997,and 2000 editions of The Best American Poetry and Scanning the Century:The Penguin Book of theTwentieth Century in Poetry. He coedited, withWilliam Greenway, I Have My Own Song for It: Modern Poems of Ohio. craborchardawardseriesinpoetry Printed in the United States of America Cover design: Erin Kirk New Cover illustration: “A Pelican and Other Birds Near a Pool (The Floating Feather)” by Melchior d’Hondecoeter, c. 1680, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Southern Illinois University Press P.O. Box 3697 Carbondale, IL 62902-3697 www.siu.edu/~siupress glaser pelicantracks southernillinoisuniversitypress Betty Greenway isbn0-8093-2516-0 ,!7IA8A9-dcfbga! ...