Cross Country: A Reading of Poems

Cross Country is a collection of poems, tracing a journey from Pomona, California, to Union Station, Los Angeles, in which the poet picks up a hitchhiker whose name is the same as his long-dead sister. Poems fill the spaces of the journey, and the two finally get to Los Angeles. Additional poems that stand on their own are included. The poems of the book are serious, funny, happy, and sad—a mix of the elements of the form. Cross Country, the title, refers to the cross-country travel, the sport of running called cross-country, and the cross itself.