Chance Ransom: POEMS (Illinois Poetry Series)

Winner of Poetry's Frederick Bock Prize and the Indiana Review Poetry Prize, Kevin Stein casts a wide net over the "ineffable befuddlement" of everyday life. His poems render history's chance larder of the consecrated and profane from which we ransom our fate. Often improvisational and always lyrical, Stein's poems move effortlessly through the art of Beckmann and Degas, the music of Bob Marley and garage bands, and the pathos of cancer patients, factory workers, and victims of bigotry. Insightful and refreshingly unaffected, Chance Ransom explores the shifting shore between self and other with clarity and compassion.