Winner of the 2016 FutureCycle Poetry Book Prize. In his fifth poetry collection, William Page explores humankind's complex relationships with the world's inhabitants. We encounter teens feeling the illusion of immortality, a French prostitute slipping into heaven, a spire-building beetle, the relentless cacophony of a katydid. Subjects range from the mighty bull and lion to the flight of the swift, from the sleeping fly to the postman's angry daughters, from the envisioned celestial flight of the dead to the actual flight of the living. Page sees heroism in the relationship of spouses, of parents and offspring; in the warmth and ferocity of friendship, the simple life of a farmer, and the courage and generosity of an innocent girl dying of AIDS. Humanity and machinery stand together in awesome contrast and similarity. At times meditative, surreal, dramatic, philosophical, witty and humorous, these poems unite truth and fiction. The dead come to life again, and the lost are found.
About the Author: William Page grew up in a small town in the rolling hills of Middle Tennessee. After graduation from Columbia Military Academy he worked briefly as salesman, mechanic, and assistant motion picture theater manager. After serving four years in the US Air Force, he earned advanced degrees in Tennessee and Ohio and taught for state universities of Texas, Alabama, Ohio, and Tennessee, retiring from Memphis State University, where he was an associate professor in the creative writing program and founder of the nationally acclaimed Memphis State Review, subsequently entitled River City Review and The Pinch, now in its 36th year of publication. Page's previous collections are Clutch Plates (1976), The Gatekeeper (1982), Bodies Not Our Own (1986), for which he received a Walter R. Smith Distinguished Book Award, and William Page Greatest Hits 1970-2000 (2001). His poems have appeared widely in such journals as The North American Review, The Southern Review, Ploughshares, and The Sewanee Review, and in numerous anthologies. His work has been highly praised by eminent poets and critics, including Laurence Lieberman, James Dickey, and Diane Wakoski. He lives with his wife, Nancy, a retired teacher, in the Fox Meadows suburb of Memphis, Tennessee.