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Mesler's Short Story stands tall
By Michael Worringer
Library Communications
Posted 4/21/2006
MADISON, Wis. -- In Short Story and Other Short Stories, the latest poetry chapbook release from the Parallel Press, Corey Mesler captures moments, both fleeting and languishing, in which people's lives become complicated and often take a turn for the worse.
Short Story lives up to its name, as many of Mesler's poems, written in a prose style, are just a paragraph or two, and most offer snapshots of lives in distress. "Alan's Approach" describes a man who becomes threatening to a woman when he meant only to make a pleasant introduction. "Alan stepped from the shadows just as she was passing. 'I won't hurt you if you don't move,' he said. It was not what he had prepared. Alan was ad-libbing," Mesler writes. Another poem, "Harmon's Dilemma," examines the consequences of two major mistakes. Mesler writes, "His life was shrinking fast and he didn't have the first clue how to slow things down." In "Jeff/Lynn," Mesler describes a "long slide downward" of a once-happy couple.
Mesler has published poetry and fiction in numerous journals including Pindeldyboz, Orchid, Thema, Mars Hill Review, Poet Lore, and others. He currently has four chapbooks and three novels available. Mesler owns one of the country's oldest independent bookstores, Burke's Book Store, with his wife in Memphis.
The Parallel Press is an imprint of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. Short Story and Other Short Stories is its 42nd poetry chapbook.Poetry chapbooks may be purchased in groups of six for $50, or $10 each. For more information, visit http://parallelpress.library.wisc.edu/chapbooks/poetry.
Orders may be sent to:
The Parallel Press
372 Memorial Library
728 State Street
Madison, WI 53706
Phone: (608) 262-2600
A selection from Short Story and Other Short Stories called "Just a Song"
She puts on "She's Leaving Home" because she is. She looks one last time at her husband's coffee cup on the sink edge, crusted. She puts her hand on the dishwasher and its warmth transmits something to her, something comforting yet forlorn. He'll have clean dishes for a while, she thinks. And he'll have a long memory about their life together that will include all the affection, all the hellos and good byes and all the times he called her names that she still believes.