Description

Kansas, Reimagined

by Anara Guard

In the winter of 1882, L. Frank Baum visited Kansas. He said it was the worst place he’d ever been and vowed never to return. In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, he described Kansas as completely gray: prairie, house, Uncle Henry. What a dreary contrast to technicolor Oz and the Emerald City.

This clever collection of persona poems shows the Midwest in full-color and beauty, giving voice to familiar characters and to unexpected entities. Hidden aspects of their lives are revealed, showing Kansas as a place worthy of imagination, one that demands our attention.

Enjoy a Video of Anara Reading from the Book:

 

Early Praise for Kansas, Reimagined:

These poems remind me of the images we used to be able to see in my childhood (in the early 1960s) through toy called a ViewMaster—images presented to the mind side-by-side brought into focus by the eyes’ binocular cooperation, where lo and behold, a sense of three-dimensionality, of actuality (beyond what one can get in a flat photo) leaps up and forward at the viewer. That’s what these poems do for me: when juxtaposed among my other apprehensions, memories, and the interpretations of other artists, [Anara’s] world of Kansas (and of Oz) does come filling in with a heavy, gravitational physicality. I so enjoyed reading them.

—Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked

When we think of The Wizard of Oz, we visualize grand, cinematic scenes such as the fearsome funnel cloud and that magical moment when vibrant color replaces black & white. But in this inventive collection, Anara Guard focuses our view on the inner musings of beloved characters and of the Kansas landscape itself. With clever wordplay and subtle rhyme, Guard reveals surprising motives, resentments, and points of pride that enliven our understanding of Dorothy and those around her. With these engaging poems, Guard invites us to try on the ruby slippers, allowing us to slide / effortlessly across time.

—Linda Jackson Collins, author of Painting Trees

I didn’t mean to come back here, multi-genre, prize-winning writer Anara Guard says in her stunning poems centered upon her vision of Kansas and its marriage to the actual memories of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz. What I find so memorable about this undertaking are the noun and verb choices used to accentuate the belief, the certainty, that we are indeed in Kansas, that Dorothy is real, that Cyclones are entities, and that precise, imagistic poetry can trap it all in our psyche. This is poetry that does more than introduce us to Kansas. Anara paints with sensual poetry, often with imperceptible slant rhyme, next to beautiful. This is not a collection. The poems are connected in taste and tincture. And it will be remembered for bringing us back to a new Kansas.

—Indigo Moor, former Poet Laureate of Sacramento, author of Everybody’s Jonesin’ for Something

Click those ruby slippers together and – when you open Anara Guard’s Kansas, Reimagined, you will find yourself, not on the yellow brick road, but on a path through Kansas via her remarkable poetry. Poetry rich with images and characters that will stay with you long after you have closed the volume’s covers.

—Carol Koss, author of Camera Obscura

About the Author

At the age of nine, Anara Guard was hired to mind a corner news stand, where she read all the tabloid papers. Later, she worked as a small-town librarian, textbook fact-checker, and editor, among other jobs. A Midwesterner at heart, she writes from her home in northern California.

Anara’s poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and, improbably enough, won both a John Crowe Ransom prize and a Jack Kerouac prize. Kansas, Reimagined is her second poetry collection. She and her sister perform poetry and offer writing workshops together as Sibling Revelry. Anara’s novel, Like a Complete Unknown, won Book of the Year Honorable Mention from the Chicago Writers Association, as well as other accolades. It draws upon her memories of that city and the music that provided a soundtrack to the late 1960s.

You can connect with Anara at:

www.anaraguard.com

https://www.facebook.com/AnaraGuardAuthor

https://www.instagram.com/anaraguard