Travelers Leaving for the City - Paperback

by Ed Skoog (Author)

Travelers Leaving for the City is a long song of arrivals and departures, centered around the murder of the poet's grandfather in 1955 in a Pittsburgh hotel, exploring how such events frame memory, history and language for those they touch. The poems probe the anonymity of cities, and the crucible of travel. The historical impact of arousal, rage, regret, and forgiveness is seen in visions of interrogations and hotels. These poems explore how family bonds, and disruptions shape, the mind and language, all the while urging the reader to listen for traces of ancestors in one's own mind and body.

Author Biography

Ed Skoog was born in Topeka, Kansas, and earned his MFA at the University of Montana. Author of four books of poetry, his work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, Paris Review, American Poetry Review, The New Republic, Poetry, and Best American Poetry, and earned the Poetry Society of America's Lyric Poetry Award and the Washington State Book Award. He is a coordinator of the Idyllwild Arts Writers Week and currently lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and son.