Caliche Road Poems
by David Meischen
"Meischen conjures the hackberries and mesquite, the cotton harvests and 'rainless earth' of his rural Texas homeplace with meticulous reserve, clarity, and crisp music. A work of abiding love and questing memory, this new volume provides the stirring pleasures of a family album while nimbly skirting sentimentality and reflexive nostalgia in favor of well-earned insight, jubilant celebration (mornings aglow like 'carnival glass'), and able compassion. The highest compliment that I can pay Meischen is that his German-American family chronicle brings to mind James Agee's indelible and legendary 'Knoxville: Summer of 1915.' Caliche Road Poems is a vibrant contribution to the literature of Texas."
-Cyrus Cassells, Texas Poet Laureate, 2021, author of Is There Room for Another Horse on Your Horse Ranch?
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About the Author
David Meischen has been writing poetry and teaching the writing of poetry for forty years. He is the author of Caliche Road Poems, new in 2024, and Anyone’s Son, 2020 winner of the John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters. His poems have appeared in Assaracus, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Naugatuck River Review, San Pedro River Review, Southern Poetry Review, The Southern Review, Talking Writing, and other journals, as well as Two Southwests (Virtual Artists Collective, 2008), which features poets from the Southwest of China and the United States.
A passionate storyteller with a lifelong interest in narrative, David is the author of Nopalito Texas: Stories and The Distance Between Here and Elsewhere: Three Stories. His short stories have appeared in Bellingham Review, Copper Nickel, The Evansville Review, The Gettysburg Review, Gertrude, Peauxdunque Review, Salamander, Talking Writing, Valparaiso Fiction Review, and elsewhere. David has an MFA in fiction from Texas State–San Marcos. Honors include the Writers’ League of Texas manuscript award in Mainstream Fiction (2011), the Talking Writing Prize for Short Fiction (2012), and the Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story from the Texas Institute of Letters (2017 and 2020).