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      Rust Belt Poets

      Conversation with
      Ken Meisel

      Rattle #57The Fall 2017 issue is dedicated to poets of the Rust Belt, a region of the United States stretching from the Great Lakes to the upper Midwest. The name refers to the deindustrialization, population loss, and urban decay due to the shrinking of its once-powerful industrial sector. One explanation for the results of the 2016 U.S. elections was the shifting political attitude of this region, and we thought we’d check in and find a first-hand account of what’s going on through the poet’s eye.  Twenty-one poets contributed to this  feature, chosen from over 2,000 submissions. In the conversation section, editor Timothy Green—himself a Rust Belt poet—talks to Detroit-based psychotherapist and poet Ken Meisel. Having lived in the Rust Belt his entire life, Meisel offers deep insights into the region’s psyche, and discusses a range of other topics, from marital love to a model for turning his art into charity.

      The issue also includes seventeen poets in another eclectic open section.

       

      Rust Belt Poets

      Audio Available Steve Abbott This Should Be a Good Poem
      Caroline Barnes Pardoning the Turkey
      Audio Available Cameron Barnett New Fruit Humming
      Audio Available Milton Bates Coyote Country
      George Bilgere Pancake Dilemma
      Sarah Carson Six Reasons I Can’t Answer the Door for You …
      Eric Chiles Medi-Maze
      Audio Available Nic Custer Work Is What It Is
      Rachel Custer Kid
      Jim Daniels Prodigal Son Returns to Warren, Michigan
      Audio Available Todd Davis Cracks
      Audio Available Sarah Wylder Deshpande The Patron Saint of Boredom
      William Evans I Say Cathedral When I Mean Gunpowder
      Audio Available Kelly Fordon Who Am I?
      K. H. The Visit
      Kamal E. Kimball I Hear America Rusting
      Audio Available Nancy Krygowski Weed Whacker
      Cade Leebron New Guide to the Quasi-Political
      Ken Meisel Art Installation
      Audio Available Christine Rhein In Detroit, What Counts as Grace
      Audio Available Ed Ruzicka Palimony
      Audio Available Laszlo Slomovits After the Reading by the Famous Poet
      Karen J. Weyant Where Girls Still Ride the Beds …

      Poetry

      Joseph A. Chelius Stockboy
      Audio Available Edward Derby Andrew Describes How to Slaughter Chickens
      Lovett Finnegan When I Run an Art Museum I Will Feature …
      Jim Hanlen Three Things
      Audio Available Zachary Hester Elegy for the Child Who Did Not Die of SIDS
      Audio Available Donna Hilbert Rambler
      Audio Available Ananda Lima Line
      Bob Lucky It Was Too Dark for a Light …
      Audio Available Herbert Woodward Martin That Summer
      Andrew Miller The Bees and the Lightning
      Behzad Molavi X
      Audio Available Al Ortolani The Taco Boat
      Li Qingzhao Spring at Wuling
      Audio Available Lee Rossi Microcosmology
      Michael Sears My Mother and I Beat a Dog
      Matthew Buckley Smith Undergrads
      Dennis Trudell A Few Minutes

      Conversation

      Ken Meisel

      Cover Art

      Mark Hillringhouse