From National Poetry Series winner Stephanie Horvath, a haunting, dreamlike odyssey through the American countryside
In Field of Vision, we traverse the thresholds of past and future, reality and dream, as we accompany the speaker through deserts, forests, rivers, and coasts. She raises her newborn son in rural Vermont; in a California desert she thinks of the life she left behind in the Midwest; she moves to an island in Maine to work at an old motel. These moments capture, viscerally and intimately, the sense of the gothic in rural America—dark, damp dirt on one’s hands, a river that wends its way through fog, the decay of wet leaves on a forest floor, a desert over which vultures circle. A meditation on the horror and resplendence of nature, Field of Vision invokes the ancient history that weaves into each of our individual histories—the earth, the animals, the fossils, the primordial echoes that shape us all.
“Field of Vision is an exquisite, strange contemplation of contrasts that feel both universal and deeply American: the California desert, drenched Maine shores; tenderness and violence; dreams and the dreamlike twists of real life. These poems twist perceptions, drawing us in, lulling us in order to surprise us. They remind me that poetry can be an act of rescue, reviving not only language but also the reader.” —Elisa Gonzalez, author of Grand Tour
Stephanie Horvath is a lecturer and former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Her poems have appeared in The Sewanee Review, Bennington Review, Gulf Coast, and Poetry Northwest, among other journals. She lives in Northern California.
View titles by Stephanie Horvath
From National Poetry Series winner Stephanie Horvath, a haunting, dreamlike odyssey through the American countryside
In Field of Vision, we traverse the thresholds of past and future, reality and dream, as we accompany the speaker through deserts, forests, rivers, and coasts. She raises her newborn son in rural Vermont; in a California desert she thinks of the life she left behind in the Midwest; she moves to an island in Maine to work at an old motel. These moments capture, viscerally and intimately, the sense of the gothic in rural America—dark, damp dirt on one’s hands, a river that wends its way through fog, the decay of wet leaves on a forest floor, a desert over which vultures circle. A meditation on the horror and resplendence of nature, Field of Vision invokes the ancient history that weaves into each of our individual histories—the earth, the animals, the fossils, the primordial echoes that shape us all.
Reviews
“Field of Vision is an exquisite, strange contemplation of contrasts that feel both universal and deeply American: the California desert, drenched Maine shores; tenderness and violence; dreams and the dreamlike twists of real life. These poems twist perceptions, drawing us in, lulling us in order to surprise us. They remind me that poetry can be an act of rescue, reviving not only language but also the reader.” —Elisa Gonzalez, author of Grand Tour
Author
Stephanie Horvath is a lecturer and former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Her poems have appeared in The Sewanee Review, Bennington Review, Gulf Coast, and Poetry Northwest, among other journals. She lives in Northern California.
View titles by Stephanie Horvath
