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Light & Dust Mobile Anthology of Poetry

About the Book

A collection of poems ranging from intense blocks of prose to gorgeously lyrical verse, FLY-OVER STATES OF MIND was inspired by two largely unknown and misunderstood places with uncanny similarities - Oklahoma and Paraguay.  Landlocked, both territories are usually bypassed or flown over, hence the name of the collection. Thus the book's core issue: contemplation of the state of mind of a person who is either flown over, or who does the flying over. Among other things, this becomes a means of exploring the loneliness and adventure, the humor, wisdom, and frustration of life outside the mainstream.  The book includes poems written in English and Spanish, which playfully form harmonies and dissonances  for the bilingual reader. These poems do not leave out those who do not read Spanish, but rather bring them into a slightly different kind of game. Several poems written in the indigenous language of Paraguay, Guarani, appear in the book, with glosses in English and Spanish. The rhythms, lyricism, and lush imagery suggest emotional states ranging from amusement to desire.

Nash, who lives in Oklahoma, but who has spent a great deal of time in Latin America, primarily in Paraguay, evokes a magical world of beauty and hidden, often dark feeling. There is a bit of ironic, wry humor as well, particularly in the book's opening, a tongue-in-cheek parody of outrageous names such as might be found in a book of baby names found in a supermarket check-out aisle. >From  this satire, Nash's poems delve into the edgy and surreal border regions of Paraguay and Argentina. These sections surround a contemplation of Julian of Norwich, a medieval nun and the first woman to write in English. The locked recesses of her sequestered cell not only explore the consciousness of a woman literally 'one the edge,' but also a surrounding milieu hungry for her visions. in styles that shift between genres as diverse as Magic Realism and Film Noir.

Intellectually rigorous, emotionally captivating, but always accessible, FLY-OVER STATES OF MIND represents the new poetry of  a global consciousness, in which what once seemed exotic has become utilitarian, but in a world where nothing remains predictable or quite what it seems.