Map of the Folded World

Map of the Folded World, John Gallaher's third full-length collection, examines the eros and desperation of suburban America with the precision of a cartographer's eye. But, as its title suggests, it does so according to the polar opposite of convention. More concerned with subtext than narrative, often childlike in tone, and propelled by the logic of innocence, Gallaher's poems don't shy away from a bottom-line sensibility. This is a book filled with swimming pools and bridges, houses and families, the ordinary places, objects, and people that connect us. However, these same things are often misunderstood when it comes to their capacity for danger. Map of the Folded World brings us back to a territory that we never knew we had discovered, as it attempts to locate an ever-shifting present on an ever-changing field.