Fog and Smoke: Poems

ISBN: 0374610894

Author: Peterson, Katie

Condition: New

Peterson unfurls the quotidian fabric of our lives, patterned with the difficulties of language and this moment.Confusion frames the human predicament. In Katie Petersons Fog and Smoke, confusion is, literally, our climate. Writing to and from the California landscape, Peterson sees fog and smoke as literal-one a habitual, natural weather event, the other an increasingly common aftereffect of the Wests drought-caused fires. But they are also metaphysical. Fog and smoke reflect the true conditions (and frustrations) of our ability to perceive and to connect. Peterson writes, Ive been speaking about it at a distance. / Now I want to talk about its thickness. / A person could get killed in here.The collection moves through three sections: First, the poet follows her local fogs cyclical journey of descent and dispersion. Second, in a sort of pastoral interlude, she travels widely, almost erratically, to the California desert, the greater world, and ancient history. Finally, she descends into the enclosed space of the household, and the increased confinement and intimacy of raising a child during the pandemic. Peterson unfolds the small moments that make up our lives and reveals the truths contained within them, and her poems capture the lyricism of our daily rhythms-the interruptions, dialogues, and epiphanies.