Bone Fragments

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Whitman wrote "who touches this book touches a man." When we pick up Rick Christiansen's powerful and elegant Bone Fragments, we also touch a man's history and character. The poems are shaped by Christiansen's life, his alcoholic, abusive mother, the younger brother he stole groceries to feed, and now, his relationship with the much-loved grandson he is raising. Bone Fragments does not shy away from human beings at their worst-the poems address, unsparingly, neglect and abuse, but Christiansen often holds back from judgment. He understands what it's like not to have options, to do the best you can under the circumstances. In "Baby Teeth, " for example, a caregiver prepares to use small pliers to extract a child's recalcitrant baby teeth, dental work that they cannot otherwise afford. The best poetry gives us a sense of the reality of someone else's life, what it's like to be someone else. This is Rick Christiansen's kind of poetry, and if you read Bone Fragments, it will be yours as well." -George Franklin, author of Remote Cities and first prize winner of the 2023 W.B. Yeats Poetry Prize. "A combo of self-fillet and whimsy! Hermann Hesse and Anais Nin on a Tinder date? Swipe right on this book!" -Frank Higgins, On Earth as it is (Spartan Press) "Rick Christiansen is a gifted writer who knows how to pull you in and keep you reading. His Bone Fragments is a fine collection of poems that got under my feet and made me feel a world of emotions. He digs deep, exposes horror, unearths marvels and tugs at the roots of hope and pathos with a penetrating humanity." -John Burroughs, U.S. National Beat Poet Laureate (2022-23) and author of Rattle and Numb ¿¿¿"Rick Christiansen is a poetic archeologist pealing back the layers of his life with no anesthetic. Each transgressive event is dug up and laid out on the white earth of the page for the reader to see. Each poem in this amazing book is a bit of bone from the broken skeleton of his life. Bone Fragments opens the poet's life to what must be confronted, must be negotiated, must be accepted, and what must be surrendered, then finally to believe it all and laugh. Christiansen conducts a brilliant, heartfelt and painful excavation of his life. If readers only read one book of poetry this year it should be Bone Fragments" -Walter Bargen, First Poet Laureate of Missouri, author of Radiation Diary "Rick C. Christiansen is a poet whose time has come. His long overdue debut full-length collection Bone Fragments is well crafted, heartfelt, and at times almost chillingly honest about the things we all go through in this life, if we live long enough to tell the tale, and thankfully for us, Rick is still out there, his words laid bare on these pages, guiding us home with the truth as his only compass." -John Dorsey, Author of Pocatello Wildflower