Welcome to Midland

by Logen Cure

Overview

Welcome to Midland is a queer coming-of-age narrative in verse set against the backdrop of conservative small-town Texas. These linked poems explore the cultural and natural history of West Texas (from the horned lizard to dirt storms to Laura Bush’s car accident), connecting events and movements from across eras to create a tenuous yet strong sense of place. Giving voice to secrets and silence, Welcome to Midland considers identity, community, family, and legend.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781646050697
Publisher:	Deep Vellum Publishing
Publication date:	08/10/2021
Pages:	100
Sales rank:	1,088,648
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Logen Cure is a queer poet and professor. She is the author of three chapbooks: Still, Letters to Petrarch, and In Keeping. She curates Inner Moonlight, a monthly reading series for The Wild Detectives in Dallas. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She lives in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas.

Read an Excerpt

Rules They say sit like

a lady, stand up

straight. They say

boy or girl; heaven

or hell; the Lord

taketh away. They

say tomboy like

bless her heart

like prayer request like

she doesn’t know

what’s good. Say

sin; say sorry;

say you were

wrong. They say

no means no; they tell

so many lies. They

say be a good

girl, don’t

say a word.

Table of Contents

Welcome to Midland 9

I.

Permian Sea 13

Lucifer at the Tea Party 16

Elementary 18

Dream in Which I Am Wile E. Coyote 19

Practice 21

Rules 24

Misdirection 25

Chaparral 26

Rainmakers, 1891 28

Family Dog 30

II.

Warbirds 35

Education 36

Close 37

Transmission 38

Observation 40

Crush 41

Santa Rita, 1921 43

Study 45

Prelude 46

Boyfriend 47

Horned Toad 49

Flurry 52

Unsupervised 53

Proximity 54

Confession 56

Camera Shy 58

Grey Fox 60

Trigger 62

III.

Laws 67

Rumors 69

Shipwreck 70

Well-Mannered Girls 73

Illumination 74

Flash Floods 75

Laura Welch, 1963 77

Flood Gauge 79

Lily 82

Monday in December 85

Shotgun 88

Scharbauer Hotel 1973 90

Injury 92

Coyote 94

Volition 97

IV.

Scorcher 101

Supernova 104

AP English 105

Jessica, 2007 107

Devil with Roots 109

Graduation 112

Alma Mater 114

Parting Gift 116

Tarantula Hawk Wasp 118

Devil's Waterhole 121

Acknowledgments 125

Editorial Reviews

"With gentle, simple language, Logen Cure invokes images so rich that you can almost taste them. Her love of words and her ability to tell a story reveal her to be a poet with a novelist's sense of narrative and characterization. For instance, in 'Camera Shy,' she deftly paints a picture of high school angst and joy so evocative that it transports us in time—summing up our shared experience of adolescence in a few heartbreakingly beautiful images. Logen Cure's poetry shakes readers in a way that can't be logically explained, but that you can feel in your bones, and in your memories." —Wess Mongo Jolley, Author, Editor, and Founder of the IndieFeed Performance Poetry Channel

“Every once in a great while, a poetry reading can freeze an audience in their seats. This happened to me on a sweltering Fort Worth evening… One thing was certain: when poet Logen Cure had finished with the audience, you could’ve heard a pin drop… Afterward, the friend who’d accompanied me leaned over and said, ‘You know how I said I didn’t like poetry? I think I was wrong.’” —Camille Griep, author of New Charity Blues

From the Publisher