Packing the Dogs and Other Peasant Traditions for Miami, by Alex Richardson

Poetry, chapbook, 20 pages, from Bottlecap Features. Alex Richardson’s poems explore the nuances of selfhood and circumstance, particularly when the cultivated routines of existence encounter the unexpected. In Packing the Dogs and Other Peasant Traditions for Miami, his poems examine the liminal spaces between worlds both natural and psychological. The collection contemplates where we come from, where we are going and the ways the self manages the journey. The poems seek to reconcile a stable identity within a landscape that is changing, a dynamic reflected by the ironies of daily life, as the speaker navigates evolving relationships with place, with loved ones, with the past and with the future. In Richardson’s case, there is usually a dog by his side, adding another liminal element to the experiences. In Packing the Dogs and Other Peasant Traditions for Miami, Richardson travels the spaces in between places and the ways we try to fill them: holding on to the old while pursuing something new. There is a kind of modern-day troubadour inhabiting the poems, seeking connection, meaning and value. Humor? Yes. But if there is joy in these poems, it is hard won and mostly comes from the bewildering state of feeling alive and being in motion.   Alex Richardson has published numerous poems in journals, magazines and anthologies in addition to having one collection, Porch Night on Walnut Street, published by Plainview Press. He taught creative writing, film, Shakespeare, and Modern poetry at Limestone College for twenty-five years. He also taught at the University of Madeira in Portugal under the auspices of a Fulbright Award.