Built Around the Fire - Paperback

by Nathan Lipps (Author)

Built Around the Fire delves into notions of place, the enveloping wonder and plight of our environment, and the complexities of rural culture: an examination of hierarchies, conservatism, generational religion, and the perpetuation of patriarchal norms. Such concepts are juxtaposed with a personal narrative: the rise and failure of a relationship, the deafening silence that arrives within any new vacancy, and the eventual need to learn to adapt in order to grow. These two themes--the notion of a midwestern place and its ideologies, and the notion of a failed relationship-- work in tandem to speak for a shared struggle. The small family farm is dying out and the personal relationship dies right alongside it. What remains is a chance at rebirth, change, a looking outward, finally, as much as a looking inward. Though there is brokenness, and pain, there is also hope.

Author Biography

NATHAN LIPPS is the author of the chapbook the body as passage (Open Palm Print). Born and raised along the rural coast of western Michigan, he currently lives in Ohio where he is a Professor at Central State University. A recipient of a Peter Taylor Fellowship (Kenyon Review), an Excellence award in Research (SUNY Binghamton), and a Poetry Fellowship (Wichita State University), Nathan's work has been published in the Best New Poets, BOAAT, Cleaver, Colorado Review, EcoThe, North American Review, Third Coast, TYPO, and elsewhere.