Nathan Grawe answers questions about his new book and projected demand for higher education insidehighered.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from insidehighered.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
COVID lockdowns, protests, election strife led to record gun sales in 2020
Police with guns drawn watch as protesters try to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Black Lives Matter protesters stand with a banner in the middle of 3rd Avenue South as they prepare to march from the Hennepin County Government Center to demand justice for Jacob Blake who was shot and paralyzed by police in Kenosha, Wis., Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021, in Minneapolis. (Anthony Souffle/Star Tribune via AP)
In this Wednesday, May 27, 2020 photo, a looter uses a claw hammer as he tries to break in to a cash register at a Target store in Minneapolis. Rioters ignited fires and looted stores all over the city, as peaceful protests turned increasingly violent in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Star Tribune via AP)
Adam O. Davis is the author of
Index of Haunted Houses (Sarabande, 2020), winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize. The recipient of the 2016 George Bogin Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, his work has recently appeared in
The Believer, The Cincinnati Review,
New Ohio Review, and
Poetry Review. He lives in San Diego, California, where he teaches at The Bishop’s School. More at www.adamodavis.com.
INTRODUCTION
The most important work any poet does is done on the page. Despite all claims otherwise, poets are mechanics, not magicians, and what makes us what we are is the tinkering, the testing, the troubleshooting. I love that work. Especially now, I take such comfort in the sanctity of the page. There I’m alone, adrift in possibility, nothing but an echo with ink, and there I must prove again and anew what I am and what I can do. A poet is not a poet without poems. The work is all and everything that matters.