Fracking Dakota: Poems for a Wounded Land, Poems by Peter Neil Carroll

Fracking Dakota: Poems for a Wounded Land by Peter Neil Carroll examines the landscape of industry and the industry of landscape, asking fundamental questions and telling memorable stories about a major economic and environmental issue of our time.

Sample Poems by Peter Neil Carroll

“Fracking Dakota: Poems for a Wounded Land, Peter Neil Carroll’s new collection, takes us on a fascinating odyssey across an increasingly broken America. With a cast of characters as disparate as Billy the Kid, closet racists, grave robbers, ghosts along the Natchez Trace, blue collar workers and the short-sighted corporations that exploit them, these poems share an undercurrent of looming disaster, a deep knowing that things are about to turn bad. They explore the predicaments of our complex world with rage and awe. Carroll’s collection begins with the personal in the universal and ends with the universal in the oh so personal poems that tie up this remarkable collection. It’s been a long time since I’ve read anything that has touched me so deeply or left me with so much hope.”— Alexis Rhone Fancher, Poetry Editor, Cultural Weekly

“Peter Carroll’s welcome volume of delicious poems, Fracking Dakota, is about American landscapes and the cartography of our inner worlds. He meditates at Grant’s Tomb, the Natchez Trace, and the Redwood Valley reminding us that what poets say echoes deep in the soul. A gorgeous collection.” — Robert S. Fogarty, Editor, The Antioch Review

“Peter Neil Carroll’s new collection of poems unexpectedly ties morality and immorality to beauty. His unusual  way of seeing, and his strong ability to bring the reader to his language and his world, gives us all a picture we haven’t seen before, a wild and disturbing picture that he draws in a way that makes it impossible to forget.”— Esther Cohen, author of God is a Tree

Peter Neil Carroll is the author of two previous collections, Riverborne: A Mississippi Requiem and A Child Turns Back to Wave: Poetry of Lost Places, which won the Prize Americana in 2012.  Other books include the memoir Keeping Time. His poems have appeared in many journals. He has taught creative writing at the University of San Francisco, taught history and American Studies at Stanford and Berkeley, and hosted “Booktalk” on Pacifica Radio. He lives in northern California with the writer/photographer Jeannette Ferrary.

ISBN 978-1625491220, 80 pages

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Also by Peter Neil Carroll:

The Truth Lies on Earth: A Year by Dark, by Bright

Talking to Strangers: Poetry of Everyday Life