Usher
Poems
11 February 2011
Description
"Meaty, maximalist, driven by narrative, [Fairchild] stakes out an American mythos."—David Ulin, Los Angeles Times
From Manhattan to the rural Midwest—one of our most distinguished poets offers a verbal cinema of America. Employing dramatic monologues, among other forms, Usher embraces a range of subject matter and modes, from the elegiac to the comic. At its heart, however, is the long poem “Trilogy,” consisting of three interrelated dramatic monologues spoken by a circus performer, a theological student and part-time usher, and Hart Crane. A Los Angeles Times Favorite Book of 2009.
Reviews
"Fairchild's singular distinction is his ability to make people and incidents in his work more actual than any, it seems, in any other kind of writing." — Booklist
"The energetic and vivid poems of Usher are a delight . . . even those who approach poetry with trepidation will be mesmerized." — Sacramento Book Review
Also By: B. H. Fairchild 
An Ordinary Life: Poems
Hardback, 2023
A poet whose work is “a cause of celebration” (John Freeman, Boston Globe) reveals the extraordinary within the ordinary.
The Blue Buick: New and Selected Poems
Paperback, 2016
“[B. H. Fairchild] is the American voice at its best: confident and conflicted, celebratory and melancholic.”—The New York Times
The Blue Buick: New and Selected Poems
E Book, 2014
“[B. H. Fairchild] is the American voice at its best: confident and conflicted, celebratory and melancholic.”—New York Times
Local Knowledge: Poems
Paperback, 2005
An early collection by the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest: Poems
Paperback, 2004
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award.