The Lost Novel

James Shea is the author of "Star in the Eye," selected for the 2008 Fence Modern Poets Series and named as a "Favorite Book of 2008" by the Chicago Sun-Times. His work has appeared in various publications, including "Boston Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, jubilat, The Iowa Review, " and the Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day feature. His translations of Japanese poetry can be found in "The Iowa Review, Circumference, " and "Gin'yu." He has taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia College Chicago, DePaul University, and as a poet-in-residence in the Chicago public schools, where he received the Poetry Center of Chicago's Gwendolyn Brooks Award for Excellence in Teaching. He was included recently in the Poetry Society of America's New American Poets series, and his second collection is forthcoming from Fence Books. He currently teaches at Nebraska Wesleyan University.

Backyard mysticism with a dash of scalding absurdity, James Shea's second collection is by turns wry, wrenching, and utterly real.

ContentsA.Thinking of Work 4Sun Can't Set 5Birthmark'd Face 6The Second Comedian 7Plato's Balls 8Three-Night Stand 9Chalk Remarks 10Ambulance Man 11Poem 12Tiny Cathedral 13The Lost Novel 14A Weed 16Table Clothes 17B.Air and Water Show 19C.The Ever-Breaking Mirror 29Lyrical Intervention 30New & Selected 34Rain's Misstep 38Poem by Tolstoy 39Interior, SD 40Towns We Saw 40Moscow 42D.The Escapist 44Sculptress 45Sammy 46An Irish Prayer 47Hired Mourners 48Dark Passage 49A Few Discrepancies between Feeling and Thought 50Upper Peninsula 51Natural Tablet 52Perfecta 53Three-Clam Lake 54Acts of Fire 55Supervenience 56