104 pages / 6.00 x 9.00 inches / no illustrations
Hothead is a haibun-patterned, book-length declamation in which no topic is off limits—Buddha, Jesus, Lincoln, America, global warming, eros, mental illness, the natural world, technology, the aging body. Cushman’s poetry shows us how to live in a world in which it is difficult to balance “the place where light and dark meet.” With an outmoded laptop named Patience as his daily consort, the speaker navigates through themes of love, politics, and belief. “There’s got to be someone,” Cushman writes, “exploring the way,” and the speaker of Hothead steps in to fill those shoes with intelligence, endurance, moxie, and humility.
Stephen Cushman is a poet and a scholar of American literature and the Civil War. His recent books include Hothead: A Poem and The Generals’ Civil War: What Their Memoirs Can Teach Us Today. He is the Robert C. Taylor Professor of English at the University of Virginia.
Stephen Cushman reads from Hothead (Soundcloud)
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