Books by Rustin Larson

“Among cornfields, junkyards, and a Dairy Queen, the eclectic castof Rustin Larson’s Lost Letters and Windfalls marches across a ruralstage: an old woman small ‘like a burlap bag/ full of nylons,’ familymembers, angels, finches, the wind, the muse, and a young girl in aDegas painting. The poet asserts: ‘The light falls upon all things. Ihave/ my memory of you—quiet as a/ picture frame among all thesebroken houses.’ In poem after poem, Larson captures images firmlycast in time yet eternal—even slightly holy: ‘But here’s what we are:each man, each woman,/ each neuter object, a church.’”“‘Listen,’ Larson urges, ‘the world/ begins in a moment.’ Themoments described in these poems are painterly and vivid. The poettrusts only his ‘sense of touch.’ They conjure a world of isolatedstillness where characters can ‘choose to stand outside of ourselvesif we wish, the snow falling.’ But also a world of connection where‘planets are fishing/ for us, wanting/ us’ and ‘[t]he moon is thefriend of the earth / and the earth of the sun.’ This is a book of smalltendernesses and lightning bolts that will stay with you.” Rustin Larson’s poetry has appeared in TheNew Yorker, The Iowa Review, and NorthAmerican Review. He won 1st Editor’sPrize from Rhino and was a prize winner inThe National Poet Hunt and The ChesterH. Jones Foundation contests. A graduateof the Vermont College MFA in Writing,Larson was an Iowa Poet at The Des Moines National PoetryFestival, and a featured poet at the Poetry at Round Top Festival.He is a poetry professor at Maharishi University, a writing instructorat Kirkwood Community College, and has also been awriting instructor at Indian Hills Community College.His honors and awards also include Pushcart Prize Nominee(seven times, 1988-2010); featured writer, DMACC Celebrationof the Literary Arts, 2007, 2008; and finalist, New EnglandReview Narrative Poetry Competition, 1985.

NAMED FEBRUARY 2019 EXEMPLAR BY THE WASHINGTON INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF BOOKS!He makes everything greater because he's a smart singer, every poem is a win. Moments shine with an unselfconscious voice. We cannot imagine how easily paint can be applied if we just speak in real time of consequential things with a depth of heart. Within that modest framework the passage of words has a capability and a sphere of influence without limits. The poetry dynamics here are a genuine voice, believable encounters, and the ability to make everything new with the belief that no one's watching you, and nothing can come of it, and there's nothing to get. This is poetry at its best.--Grace Cavalieri in The Washington Independent Review of Books

DEAR RUSTIN,"I still talk to my father..." or "History" or "One Cup of Tea" or "We Iowans..." Thank you for your most consoling and compelling HOWLING ENIGMA!! YOUR WORDS always ring truth to me!--Naomi S. Nye in Texas & your FAN.

Rustin Larson's exquisitely crafted new collection mixes the ordinary, real world with surreal, fantastical visions. "I arrive at a mansion / Surrounded by fallen branches/ And ice. / Inside are chairs / That resemble lions / Or laws / Or the boredom of kings." He reminds us of the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Luis Borges: "A piano, / With its keys locked under its cover, / Is some giant creature / At the bottom of the sea, /Waiting." Like a painter saturating the colors of Earth, exalting its geography from delirious beauty to war nightmares, Larson takes the reader on a dreamlike journey, filled with flashbacks, family memories, and ghosts. --Hélène Cardona, award winning author of Dreaming My Animal Selves / Le Songe de mes Âmes Animales.

WINNER OF THE 2013 BLUE LIGHT BOOK AWARDRustin Larson's poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The Iowa Review, North American Review, Poetry East, Saranac Review, Poets & Artists and other magazines. He is the author of The Wine-Dark House (Blue Light Press, 2009) and Crazy Star (selected for the Loess Hills Book's Poetry Series in 2005). Larson won 1st Editor's Prize from Rhino Magazine in 2000 and has won prizes for his poetry from The National Poet Hunt and The Chester H. Jones Foundation among others. A seven-time Pushcart nominee, and graduate of the Vermont College MFA in Writing, Larson was an Iowa Poet at The Des Moines National Poetry Festival in 2002 & 2004, a featured writer in the DMACC Celebration of the Literary Arts in 2007 & 2008, and he was a featured poet at the Poetry at Round Top Festival in May 2012.ENDORSEMENTSChallenging a reader's perspective while remaining accessible, direct and vulnerable, Rustin Larson magically turns the routine into the extraordinary. His ability to craft memories, whether shaded, flickering or luminous, entices readers of Bum Cantos, Winter Jazz, & The Collected Discography of Morning to linger, examine and encounter the significance of seemingly routine lives. Larson elegantly uses detailed, sensual images, chiming rhythms, and well-chosen, well-placed words to evoke layers of thematic content. Rustin Larson's poems entertain and inform while examining the many facets of the lives we endeavor to accept, enjoy and use for good purpose. -Michael Carrino, author of By Available LightLarson writes like an angel, but one who's willing to work both sides of the street. -John Peterson, Wapsipinicon AlmanacLike Odysseus, Larson has been trying to find his way home, or at least to redefine that home. Larson's vehicle for his journey is the process of writing itself, which he has dedicated himself to and which he knows can be both circuitous and serendipitous. But the writer who pursues his craft, like Odysseus who pursues the journey home, must have patience... the poet and his journey are one. -Stephen Schneider, Pirene's FountainEach poem in Larson's book is packed with as much detail as a short story. The narrator often alludes to literary works, famous as well as infamous people, easily identifiable locations on the globe, and renowned historical events that either relate to the poems thematically, or place the memories in history for the reader. The poems do not adhere to any one form, but rather, they take form as their contents require. Larson's writing style is multifarious. -Stephen Page, Buenos Aires HeraldFrom moment to moment, Larson is surrealistic, Proustian, stand-up-comedy funny, dead serious, sad, ecstatic, deadpan. In Larson's multitude of stories and modes, there's always some layer of the writer concerned with craft, with metawriting... Write on, Rustin, write on. -Vince Gotera, North American Review

Rustin Larson is courageous in that he is not willing to take refuge in the ordinary. His poetry has been described as "stylistically diverse," but as this comprehensive collection demonstrates, the style of his work is not applied as a matter of form; rather, it is derived from the nature of the poems themselves. So the reader's experience is one of wholeness, of the seamless expression of style, idea, imagery, emotion, and message. I read a lot of poetry, and believe me, it has been pure pleasure to immerse myself in The Wine-Dark House. -James A. Autry The Wine-Dark House is a triumph by Rustin Larson. The poems are evocative and finely wrought, brimming with detailed, sensual images and delicately crafted lines. The poet leads us gently, yet with a firm purpose, on a tour of shadowed memory, both distant and more recent, that explores memory's hard truth. Yet, with patience, he leads us to the seductive comforts of memory. The poems entertain with an informed point of view. They always have that "click" close readers need to beckon them back for a second and third sampling of their writer's careful and rigorous craft. -Michael CarrinoWith consummate skill, inspired wit, and a rare compassion, the poems of The Wine-Dark House observe, reflect, and startle, reminding us of the necessary human endeavor to both honor and challenge the occasions of our daily lives. At once courageously personal and generously universal, the compelling poetry of Rustin Larson embodies ". . . an accumulation of hungers / as old as fire." -Walter ButtsRustin Larson is a terrific, elegant, original poet whose voice rings so truly we become better people just by reading him. -Naomi Shihab Nye