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David Keplinger directs the creative writing programs at Colorado State University, Pueblo. His first book of poems The Rose Inside won the 1999 T.S. Eliot Prize and he was awarded the NEA for his poetry. His second book of poems, The Clearing (New Issues P, 2005) will be followed by The Prayers of Others (New Issues P, 2006). |
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Published Spring 2006
 
Finger
The Ghost of Hamlet's Father worked the night shift
At the grocery store. You could see him
Weighing lunchmeat in the deli section.
What a falling off that was, to watch
The great man at the sliver, the armored
Blade whirring deeply as the meat pressed in.
He knew exactly what to cut to make
One pound, though sometimes on the scales he used his thumb.
***
My cousin the policeman finds a finger
In the ruins at Ground Zero. He puts it
In a bag and takes it to a place where other
Severed limbs and clothing and some personal
Effects are being gathered. The pieces
Are piled in hopeless disarray. My cousin
Is a good man with a broad, kind face. The finger
In the bag points everywhere he goes.
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MR BOOKS
Critics at Work
ed. Jeffrey J. Williams.
Critics at Work offers a guided tour through the central, sometimes confusing and frequently controversial developments in contemporary literary and cultural criticism. The tour guides, however, are not distant observers but have been primary participants in those developments, and they report on theory, cultural studies, the literary canon, the recent focus on race, sexuality, and other identities, the state of the univerisity, and the role of the intellectual. Throughout, they consider the not always easy negotiation of politics and culture.
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