Neighbors Poems by Tom Boswell
Co-Winner of the 2017 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize
Neighbors Poems by Tom Boswell
Cover art and author sketch by Aaron Bos-Wahl
“Neighbors live all around you yet no one is anyone you expect. This collection of poems reminds us of the monsters, the mundane, and the magnificent folks who live next door, across the street, and at the edge of town. As familiar as the flat horizons of the Midwest and as startling as glancing over little white roadside crosses and seeing your own name, these lines sharpen your gaze on what surrounds you unnoticed every day. “Long live the dandelions!” Take a look.”
Eric Paul Schaffer, author of A Million-Dollar Bill
“In Neighbors, Tom Boswell lays bare the hidden underside of a seemingly bucolic small town and the complex, often tormented inner lives of its residents. Boswell’s poems focus a cold but compassionate eye on sharply observed, revelatory moments that unlock layers of complex, buried meanings, often poignant, sometimes horrific. A poem like “Visitation” illuminates a passing moment as if in a camera flash, capturing unsuspected depths and ironies as complex as a Chekhov short story compressed into eighteen lines. These unassuming poems pack a wallop as incendiary as cluster bombs.”
– Timothy Walsh, author of When the World Was Rear-Wheel Drive
