Christian Gullette

Find and share the perfect poems. Propped on a pillow, sprained and swollen, I press an ice-filled Ziploc to my ankle, wrap the bag in a tea towel. My Swedish host insists; ice might burn my skin, laid up in a guest room binge-watching a remake of War and Peace. A picture of their lost son —poster-size—overlooks my sickbed. I’m here to translate poems about him, but I cannot move. This mini-series finds scant comfort in fate.

Californian landscapes in crisis and transitiveness as a state of being frame Christian Gullette’s Coachella Elegy. These chiseled, cartographic poems take us through Joshua Tree, Palm Springs, Santa Cruz, Mendocino, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, in intimate, foreboding portraits of self, state, family, and love. The poet, seeking terra firma, proves place to be a metaphor for mind: We spent the night looking at lights on mansions in the Provo hills where there were songs and warm babies.

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book. Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others. Christian Gullette’s poetry collectionCoachella Elegy is a striking portrait of an evolving California and its denizens.