Synopsis "Lost Letters and Windfalls"
"Among cornfields, junkyards, and a Dairy Queen, the eclectic castof Rustin Larson's Lost Letters and Windfalls marches across a ruralstage: an old woman small 'like a burlap bag/ full of nylons, ' familymembers, angels, finches, the wind, the muse, and a young girl in aDegas painting. The poet asserts: 'The light falls upon all things. Ihave/ my memory of you--quiet as a/ picture frame among all thesebroken houses.' In poem after poem, Larson captures images firmlycast in time yet eternal--even slightly holy: 'But here's what we are: each man, each woman, / each neuter object, a church.'""'Listen, ' Larson urges, 'the world/ begins in a moment.' Themoments described in these poems are painterly and vivid. The poettrusts only his 'sense of touch.' They conjure a world of isolatedstillness where characters can 'choose to stand outside of ourselvesif we wish, the snow falling.' But also a world of connection where'planets are fishing/ for us, wanting/ us' and '[t]he moon is thefriend of the earth / and the earth of the sun.' This is a book of smalltendernesses and lightning bolts that will stay with you." Rustin Larson's poetry has appeared in TheNew Yorker, The Iowa Review, and NorthAmerican Review. He won 1st Editor'sPrize from Rhino and was a prize winner inThe National Poet Hunt and The ChesterH. Jones Foundation contests. A graduateof the Vermont College MFA in Writing, Larson was an Iowa Poet at The Des Moines National PoetryFestival, and a featured poet at the Poetry at Round Top Festival.He is a poetry professor at Maharishi University, a writing instructorat Kirkwood Community College, and has also been awriting instructor at Indian Hills Community College.His honors and awards also include Pushcart Prize Nominee(seven times, 1988-2010); featured writer, DMACC Celebrationof the Literary Arts, 2007, 2008; and finalist, New EnglandReview Narrative Poetry Competition, 1985.
