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Prose poetry, chapbook, 36 pages, from Bottlecap Features.
Written during a writing residency with the National Park Service at Acadia National Park in Maine, the block form poems in Stone Math reflect the layered experience of engaging with public lands.
Fluctuations between calm and chaos, peace and violence, are part of the collective human story. The history of Acadia is a history of ice and magma, of destruction and construction, of lives both human and animal. It is a history of continual change, one that must be recognized as past drifts toward future, and it is proof that one result of upheaval is staggering beauty.
Time is the force from which all other forces are born, shaping the land before our eyes. Like rock strata, stories are added and subtracted, forgotten and remembered. Lands and peoples are divided and brought together, again and again. Natural places deserve active reverence, a stewardship fueled by deep respect and appreciation for the sublime.
Mike Bove is the author of five poetry collections and a novella, A Catalog of Imaginary Houses, forthcoming from Split/Lip Press. His work has appeared in journals including Rattle, Baltimore Review, Tar River Poetry, Southern Humanities Review, and others. In 2024, he served as writer-in-residence at Acadia National Park. He is Editor of Hole in the Head Review, a biannual poetry journal, and Professor of English at Southern Maine Community College. He lives with his family in Portland, Maine.