On the Falsehoods of Geographical Knowledge
This author is a recipient
of the Sigma Tau Delta Award
Philip Goldfarb Styrt
lives in Davenport, Iowa, USA with his wife, toddler, and toothless dog. His poetry focuses on traditional forms with modern flair and has been published in the Eastern Iowa Review, Coffee People Zine, and Quercus, among others. Styrt is a faculty member at St. Ambrose University.
SOCIALS
The Midwest, someone told me once, is flat.
Chicago has to build a mound of trash
For kids to sled; the wide but lazy Platte
Meanders swampily, without a splash,
Across Nebraska’s clear, unbroken plain;
The sunset takes forever to expire
Above the monocultured waves of grain
Burnt orange by the reflection of its fire;
The only trees that violate the eye
Are carefully arranged to hedge the farms
And do not limit the eternal sky
But fringe it like a mantled coat of arms—
And I believed this general report
Until I moved to hilly Davenport.