Spontaneous combustion occurs when Bill, a forty-year-old barista and a failed poet, meets James, a disabled factory worker and a daddy hunk, at an OctoBear Dance.

For six months they share weekends of incredible passion at James’s house up north in the country. Winter has never seemed hotter in their flannel sheets. But on the first day of spring James abruptly informs Bill over the phone that it’s not going to work out and hangs up. No further explanation: just the static of silence.

Feeling haunted like Djuna Barnes while she wrote her novel Nightwood in the 1930s, Bill searches for answers in his recollections of James and others who’d departed too early from his life. When he does discover why James left, the answer comes from a mysterious stranger with secrets of his own.

Encompassing some 130 years in Ironwood''s history, Compassion, Michigan illuminates characters struggling to adapt to their circumstances starting in the present day, with its subsequent stories rolling back in time to when Ironwood was first founded. What does it mean to live in a small town--so laden with its glory day reminiscences--against the stark economic realities of today? Doesn''t history matter anymore? Could we still have compassion for others who don''t share our views? A Deaf woman, born into a large, hearing family, looks back on her turbulent relationship with her younger, hearing sister. A gas station clerk reflects on Stella Draper, the woman who ran an ice cream parlor only to kill herself on her 33rd birthday. A devout mother has a crisis of faith when her son admits that their priest molested him. A bank teller, married to a soldier convicted of treason during the Korean War, gradually falls for a cafeteria worker. A young transgender man, with a knack for tailoring menswear, escapes his wealthy Detroit background for a chance to live truly as himself in Ironwood. When a handsome single man is attracted to her, a popular schoolteacher enters into a marriage of convenience only to wonder if she''s made the right decision. RAYMOND LUCZAK, a Yooper native, is the author and editor of 24 books, including Flannelwood. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. "These are stories of extremely real women, mostly disappointed by life, living meagerly in a depleted town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Sound depressing? Not at all. Luczak has tracked their hopes, their repressed desires, and their ambitions with the elegance and precision of one of those silhouette artists who used to snip out perfect likenesses in black paper; people ''comforted by the familiarity of loneliness,'' as he writes." --EDMUND WHITE, author of A Saint in Texas

A long time ago young men wishing to be tall scaled the mast of my octopus arms and scanned the horizon of Lake Superior for a glimmer of Canada. Usually we were cut down ... For many of those who''ve lived there, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan can seem like a magical place because nature there feels so potent and, at times, full of mystery. After having grown up there, Raymond Luczak can certainly attest to its mythical powers. In Chlorophyll, he reimagines Lake Superior and its environs as well as his houseplants as a variety of imaginary and historical characters.        Ghosts dress in only gray and white. This is how they camouflage their volcanic selves.     Lake Superior is bottled with them.         You can''t see them but they move like fish ... "In Raymond Luczak''s Chlorophyll, the devastating natural beauty of Michigan''s Upper Peninsula is imbued with passions its reticent human inhabitants are loathe to express. Trees, lakes, and stones air their infatuations, their grudges, their mythologies and griefs. Through this forest of the otherwise unsaid, we catch glimpses of a speaker who knows there is no line to blur between ''person'' and ''nature.''" --Emily Van Kley, author of Arrhythmia and The Rust and the Cold Spring is a girl who''s cried all night only to find that morning easily forgives the coldness of him having left her stranded among the thicket of evergreens ... "Giving voice to the natural world, Raymond Luczak allows the rocks, trees, lakes, insects, and flowers that are part of flora and fauna of the region to speak for themselves, and they remind us that we are human, living in a more than human world." --William Reichard, author of Our Delicate Barricades Downed and The Night Horse: New and Selected Poems Raymond Luczak grew up in the Upper Peninsula. He is the author and editor of numerous titles such as Compassion, Michigan: The Ironwood Stories. His book once upon a twin: poems was chosen as a U.P. Notable Book for 2021. He resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Sometimes the best way to learn about a unique region is to listen to the stories told by those who''ve actually lived there. You learn things that no guidebook would ever tell you. You meet unforgettable characters who''ve strayed far off the beaten path. And you see clearly again how the power of memory is so strong that they can still recall incidents decades later. Michigan''s Upper Peninsula has always been filled with remarkable sensations and indelible stories. With this anthology, the editor Raymond Luczak sought to include poets who not only live in the U.P., but also who used to live there. What did it mean to be a Yooper then? What about now? Even for those who no longer abide there, the U.P. is indeed a special place, and it isn''t just thanks to Mother Nature. The Yooper mindset requires a particular kind of faith in resilience against persistent odds. The poets in this collection have never forgotten what it means to be a Yooper. Come partake in our celebration! Featuring Martin Achatz * Jennifer Elen Brid * B. Harlan Deemer * Chad Faries * Deborah K. Frontiera * Kathleen M. Heideman * John Hilden * Jonathan Johnson * Kathleen Carlton Johnson * Ellen Lord * Raymond Luczak * Gala Malherbe * Beverly Matherne * R. H. Miller * Jane Piirto * Dana Richter * T. Kilgore Splake * Suzanne Sunshower * Russell Thorburn "Yooper Poetry is a very thoughtful and beautifully published book... Some of the best Yooper writing reaches toward the poetic heights that resonate with "danger"... I love the resonance that exists and helps to feed our various literatures across time and distance." -- Mack Hassler, U.P. Book Review RAYMOND LUCZAK is the author and editor of over 30 books, including U.P.-centric titles such as Far from Atlantis: Poems (Gallaudet University Press), Chlorophyll: Poems about Michigan''s Upper Peninsula (Modern History Press), and Compassion, Michigan: The Ironwood Stories (Modern History Press). His poetry collection once upon a twin: poems (Gallaudet University Press) was a top ten U.P. Notable Book of the YearPoetry, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. A proud Yooper, he lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Spontaneous combustion occurs when Bill, a forty-year-old barista and a failed poet, meets James, a disabled factory worker and a daddy hunk, at an OctoBear Dance.

For six months they share weekends of incredible passion at James’s house up north in the country. Winter has never seemed hotter in their flannel sheets. But on the first day of spring James abruptly informs Bill over the phone that it’s not going to work out and hangs up. No further explanation: just the static of silence.

Feeling haunted like Djuna Barnes while she wrote her novel Nightwood in the 1930s, Bill searches for answers in his recollections of James and others who’d departed too early from his life. When he does discover why James left, the answer comes from a mysterious stranger with secrets of his own.

Encompassing some 130 years in Ironwood''s history, Compassion, Michigan illuminates characters struggling to adapt to their circumstances starting in the present day, with its subsequent stories rolling back in time to when Ironwood was first founded. What does it mean to live in a small town--so laden with its glory day reminiscences--against the stark economic realities of today? Doesn''t history matter anymore? Could we still have compassion for others who don''t share our views? A Deaf woman, born into a large, hearing family, looks back on her turbulent relationship with her younger, hearing sister. A gas station clerk reflects on Stella Draper, the woman who ran an ice cream parlor only to kill herself on her 33rd birthday. A devout mother has a crisis of faith when her son admits that their priest molested him. A bank teller, married to a soldier convicted of treason during the Korean War, gradually falls for a cafeteria worker. A young transgender man, with a knack for tailoring menswear, escapes his wealthy Detroit background for a chance to live truly as himself in Ironwood. When a handsome single man is attracted to her, a popular schoolteacher enters into a marriage of convenience only to wonder if she''s made the right decision. RAYMOND LUCZAK, a Yooper native, is the author and editor of 24 books, including Flannelwood. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. "These are stories of extremely real women, mostly disappointed by life, living meagerly in a depleted town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Sound depressing? Not at all. Luczak has tracked their hopes, their repressed desires, and their ambitions with the elegance and precision of one of those silhouette artists who used to snip out perfect likenesses in black paper; people ''comforted by the familiarity of loneliness,'' as he writes." --EDMUND WHITE, author of A Saint in Texas

A long time ago young men wishing to be tall scaled the mast of my octopus arms and scanned the horizon of Lake Superior for a glimmer of Canada. Usually we were cut down ... For many of those who''ve lived there, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan can seem like a magical place because nature there feels so potent and, at times, full of mystery. After having grown up there, Raymond Luczak can certainly attest to its mythical powers. In Chlorophyll, he reimagines Lake Superior and its environs as well as his houseplants as a variety of imaginary and historical characters.        Ghosts dress in only gray and white. This is how they camouflage their volcanic selves.     Lake Superior is bottled with them.         You can''t see them but they move like fish ... "In Raymond Luczak''s Chlorophyll, the devastating natural beauty of Michigan''s Upper Peninsula is imbued with passions its reticent human inhabitants are loathe to express. Trees, lakes, and stones air their infatuations, their grudges, their mythologies and griefs. Through this forest of the otherwise unsaid, we catch glimpses of a speaker who knows there is no line to blur between ''person'' and ''nature.''" --Emily Van Kley, author of Arrhythmia and The Rust and the Cold Spring is a girl who''s cried all night only to find that morning easily forgives the coldness of him having left her stranded among the thicket of evergreens ... "Giving voice to the natural world, Raymond Luczak allows the rocks, trees, lakes, insects, and flowers that are part of flora and fauna of the region to speak for themselves, and they remind us that we are human, living in a more than human world." --William Reichard, author of Our Delicate Barricades Downed and The Night Horse: New and Selected Poems Raymond Luczak grew up in the Upper Peninsula. He is the author and editor of numerous titles such as Compassion, Michigan: The Ironwood Stories. His book once upon a twin: poems was chosen as a U.P. Notable Book for 2021. He resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Sometimes the best way to learn about a unique region is to listen to the stories told by those who''ve actually lived there. You learn things that no guidebook would ever tell you. You meet unforgettable characters who''ve strayed far off the beaten path. And you see clearly again how the power of memory is so strong that they can still recall incidents decades later. Michigan''s Upper Peninsula has always been filled with remarkable sensations and indelible stories. With this anthology, the editor Raymond Luczak sought to include poets who not only live in the U.P., but also who used to live there. What did it mean to be a Yooper then? What about now? Even for those who no longer abide there, the U.P. is indeed a special place, and it isn''t just thanks to Mother Nature. The Yooper mindset requires a particular kind of faith in resilience against persistent odds. The poets in this collection have never forgotten what it means to be a Yooper. Come partake in our celebration! Featuring Martin Achatz * Jennifer Elen Brid * B. Harlan Deemer * Chad Faries * Deborah K. Frontiera * Kathleen M. Heideman * John Hilden * Jonathan Johnson * Kathleen Carlton Johnson * Ellen Lord * Raymond Luczak * Gala Malherbe * Beverly Matherne * R. H. Miller * Jane Piirto * Dana Richter * T. Kilgore Splake * Suzanne Sunshower * Russell Thorburn "Yooper Poetry is a very thoughtful and beautifully published book... Some of the best Yooper writing reaches toward the poetic heights that resonate with "danger"... I love the resonance that exists and helps to feed our various literatures across time and distance." -- Mack Hassler, U.P. Book Review RAYMOND LUCZAK is the author and editor of over 30 books, including U.P.-centric titles such as Far from Atlantis: Poems (Gallaudet University Press), Chlorophyll: Poems about Michigan''s Upper Peninsula (Modern History Press), and Compassion, Michigan: The Ironwood Stories (Modern History Press). His poetry collection once upon a twin: poems (Gallaudet University Press) was a top ten U.P. Notable Book of the YearPoetry, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. A proud Yooper, he lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.