Jared Carter

I went to the first reading of this book by the Author in 1991.

A book that my grandmother gave me of my home state.

I picked up this collection of poetry because the poet is from a small town in Indiana near my mother's hometown. Carter's poetry captures the decline of rural Indiana, somewhere between wistfulness and melancholy. The Indiana of my memory now exists mostly in the cemetery, with the family and friends I loved who made it such a special place. It also exists in Carter's poetry, and I can still visit it there.

Reading this was like a walk in a refreshing spring rain. Carter, who comes from my home county in Indiana, references a dying rural and small town culture and it's helpful to know a little about that. One poem, which is about peonies, is about decorating graves. (Peonies are a traditional Memorial Day grave flower.) Three of the poems are called tintypes and are about historical Indiana figures (Sam Bass, Oliver Morton and John Dillinger.)