David Meischen – författare

In this stunning debut story collection, everyone's got the blues but nobody is willing to sing it. Evelyn Smith, Candace Lambert, and Dorene Wahrmund chafe against rigid small-town expectations. Others in hardscrabble Nopalito find themselves fenced in--an aging gay liquor store owner estranged among his neighbors, a mother and son bound by mutual resentment, two neighboring farm boys attracted to each other. Their stories are driven by desperation, rarely spoken, that troubles the community's inhabitants as it nudges them toward connection, toward moments of hope. Meischen draws these characters with a tenderness that belies the hardness of their lives.

The third collection from John A. Robertson Award– and Pushcart Prize–winning poet David Meischen, looking at the joys, the struggles, and the contradictions of aging. In this gorgeous assembly of poems, award-winning poet David Meischen candidly examines how spirit defies both age and time, even when it cannot defeat either. Meischen’s poems investigate the ways sexual desire changes as we age, the grief of losing those close to us, and the oddness that comes with being young in spirit while trapped in a body no longer young. Rooted firmly in the Southwestern desert, these poems also travel to Russia and Germany, carrying a note of urgency in their exploration of a life well lived. Unbuckled is a collection full of vibrancy, hope, and gratitude.