One afternoon when poet John Leax was standing in a grocery store checkout line, a tabloid news headline beckoned: "Leaping Turtles Invade US." As he looked more closely at the accompanying image, two lines sprang into his imagination: "Suppose one could believe the tabloid headlines. Suppose the stories under them were true." Leax later wrote that “true story.” Then he wrote another. And another. They are all collected in Tabloid News, his fourth book of poems. As he wrote, Leax explored two linked impulses that he found in the tabloids: desire and fear. We desire connection to beings other than ourselves. Yet we fear what we do not know—what is alien or different from us. In poems like “Baby Born with Antlers,” “Dog Makes $60 Million Modeling” and “Duck Hunters Shoot Angel,” Leax grapples with this conflict between desire and fear humorously, chillingly, poignantly and artfully. If you've ever been attracted—or repelled—by a tabloid news headline, these poems are for you.

Tabloid News: Poems

Literature & Fiction

John Leax

Poetry

WordFarm

In Recluse Freedom, a collection of new poems written from 1990 to 2010, John Leax offers a human history of family, community, and nation in conversation with a spiritual history--imagined, experienced and revealed. Readers who have already discovered Leax will welcome this new book. For others, Recluse Freedom provides a fresh and rewarding introduction to this poet of the "still, small voice." "His best poems to date," writes reviewer Thom Satterlee in Books & Culture.

Recluse Freedom

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by John Leax. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by John Leax

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by John Leax. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Tabloid News: Poems

Recluse Freedom