Description

An Eyeful of Hennepin Neon

by Rheanna Haaland

An Eyeful of Hennepin Neon is a story of loss, thrill, and temptation, for anyone who has ever tried to claw their way out of savage memories with lonely sex and hard liquor. Haaland’s poems will lie through their teeth as they avoid eye contact with sensations and situations they refuse to dignify with names. From barbed-wire wastelands to the bright neon streets of a flyover metropolis, this is a story that won’t take silence for an answer.

About the Author

Rheanna Haaland (she/her/they/them) was raised by wolves in the middle of nowhere, North Dakota. They have written poetry since they were old enough to pick up a pen and earned a writing degree from Minnesota State University Moorhead to prove it. Circa 2014, David Bowie appeared to her in a dream and told her to move to Minneapolis. Which she did. She worked for a while at a bookstore two blocks from Hennepin Avenue. It has since closed.

Haaland is the 3rd place winner of the 2018 Erotica Grand SlaMN Championship for spoken word poetry. Her work has appeared most recently in Auk Contraire, The Same, and Red Weather Magazine. She would like to extend a special thanks to her biological and chosen families (particularly Coryn LaNasa, r.e. rahrich, and Timothy Nunes) and to you, the reader, for taking time to read this book. Special thanks are due as well to The Poetry Box for taking a chance on this chapbook. Haaland is currently in the process of finalizing her 2nd collection, Catching Narcissus, and applying to medical school. She still lives in Minneapolis with a cat named Brummell. If you’d like to buy her a drink later, she’s a year and a half sober. And busy.

[Twitter: @rheannahaaland • Instagram: thepoethaaland]

What They’re Saying…

“Rheanna Haaland writes physical poems, hands to mouth, fingers to skin, tongue to warmth. Very personal and very close contact, like you want to read them to someone in a whisper as you lie together. She also explores that human condition that is in all of us, convincing ourselves to want what isn’t necessarily good for us and to somehow justify pushing away what we need.”

~ Matt Amott, Poet
Co-founder/publisher of Six Ft. Swells Press