What the Dying Man Asked Me

In his debut chapbook poet Derek Graf pushes back against those forces that would box him in, define him: the night sky’s pitch blackness, the night sky pregnant with stars, a cold apartment in the middle of nowhere, an airport layover, dead birds in driveways, lost loves, the wonders and burdens of creativity in a universe that’s either indifferent or hostile. There’s a certain bravery and lunacy in Graf’s stunning poems: “I drew you a bird while falling down the stairs,” he writes in one poem. And though the “planet is wild” and “home is a ghost,” he leads us—and we gladly follow—from “an empty city to a land / of fertility.” I look forward to following Graf for a long time to come.

—Chad Reynolds, author of City of Tomorrow and Buenos Aires