Falling somewhere between a "diary-poem," a "daybook," "autobiography-in-verse," and an "essay-poem," In a Landscape is noted poet and critic John Gallaher's most personal, straightforward, and revealing book yet. In lyric-prose that continuously circles the questions it raises, Gallaher sloughs off the garb of "poet" to address life questions in a way that few poets of his generation have been willing to risk. Family, death, adoption, children, parents, high school, music . . . Gallaher's subjects carry weight because of their absolute commonness.
John Gallaher is assistant professor of English at Northwest Missouri State University, and co-editor of the Laurel Review.