MIDWESTERN REALISM

“But you have there the myth

of the essential white America.

All the other stuff, the love, the

democracy, the flourishing into

lust is a sort of by-play. The

essential American soul is hard,

isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has

never melted.”—D. H. Lawrence,

Studies in Classic American Literature

Sometimes it seems as tho—

It was written by somebody else

The reason for this Kansas noir—

This primal gothic slant to it

It’s always in a state of flux—

It demands a new Voice each time

Beowulfian monsters got stale—

The British word-hoard got moldy

American writers had to adapt—

Come up with a totally new noir

And when it happened stylistically—

One result was Midwestern Realism

Now Kansas Gothic Imagination—

Is going through changes again

The Tallgrass Prairie pukes up—

Somebody transgressive like me

Midwestern Noir