Rush to the Lake
Forrest Gander
"Forrest Gander's poems have life, humor and a pleasant strangeness. They speak of,
or rather from, a Japan of the imagination and the American South in sweet and sure
androgynous tones. His book will make you laugh while the poems go about their business of
printing after-images on your memory."
—William Corbett
"Gander writes a cool, detached poetry, never confessional or
autobiographical...There's a toughness, a hard edge of danger on the margins of these
poems. Gander has a startling way of yoking beauty and violence..."
—The
Providence Sunday Journal
"Gander writes with a fascinating opaqueness; his metaphors and narrative touches
twist strangely on the page, seem to reflect light back into the reader's eyes... The
Japanese influence that weaves through the poems adds to their opaque, alien quality. But
the eccentricities in Rush To The Lake aren't cross-national or cross-cultural;
they inhere in the queer, lyrical properties of Gander's own mind...I very much like Rush
To The Lake."
—Poetry Flash
about the author
Forrest Gander is the editor of Mouth to Mouth, a bilingual anthology of contemporary Mexican poets, and the author of numerous books, including Rush to the Lake from Alice James Books, and Torn Awake and Science & Steepleflower, both from New Directions. Gander’s most recent translations are No Shelter: Selected Poems of Pura López Colomé and, with Kent Johnson, Immanent Visitor: The Selected Poems of Jaime Saenz, a PEN Translation Award Finalist. The recipient of Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative North American Writing, NEA Fellowships in poetry, and The Whiting Award for Writers, Gander has written critical essays for numerous journals, including The Nation, The Boston Review, and The Providence Journal. With poet C.D. Wright, he co-edits the literary book press Lost Roads Publishers and keeps a small orchard outside of Providence, Rhode Island. Gander is Professor of English and Comparative Literatures and Director of the Graduate Program in Literary Arts at Brown University.
