Index of Haunted Houses
Published on 15. October 2020
Book
Paperback/Softback
72 pages
978-1-946448-66-8 (ISBN)
Description
This is a book of ghost stories, and for the most part, ghosts are jealous monsters, intent upon our destruction. They never appear overtly here, yet we gradually become aware of the spirits in haunted houses in the way they tread over creaky floors, slam doors, and issue sudden gusts of wind. These poems are Koan-like-the fewer the words, the more charged they are. The engine driving the sense of haunting and loss is money, which Davis describes as "federal bone" boiling around us. Bison in Nebraska are reduced to bones, "seven/standing men/tall" fodder for the fertilizer used by farmers in the 1800s. There is, too, an equality to the hauntings-every instance has its moment, and persists, despite being in the past, present, or future. Index of Haunted Houses is spooky and sad-a stunning debut, one that will surprise, convince, and most of all, delight.
Reviews / Votes
Finalist for the Big Other Book Award in PoetryFinalist for the Big Other Readers' Choice Award
Publishers Weekly, "15 New and Forthcoming Indie Press Gems"
Library Journal, "Versifying / Collection Development: Poetry"
Academy of American Poets, "2020 Featured Fall Books"
Neon Pajamas, "Favorite Authors (and Their Books) That I Read in 2020"
"This is a collection of stark witness and testimony, with a voice that manages to sing."
-Publishers Weekly, online and print
"A debut collection of prose poetry, Davis tackles themes generally reserved for the annals of genre fiction. Everything from things that go bump in the night to disappearing and destroyed Bison, the pieces actualize how even the worst hauntings, the scariest monsters, carry their own nightmares and doubts."
-"15 New and Forthcoming Indie Press Gems" by Michael Seidlinger, Publishers Weekly
"Davis's Index of Haunted Houses. . . is part exploration, part exhumation, part exorcism, part easement. Each poem takes on different tones and personalities, revealing new layers with each reading. The book is a ghost readers will carry with them for days, and possibly years, after their first encounter."
-"'This house will outlast.' Paranormal and Verbal Delights in Adam O. Davis's Index of Haunted Houses," Tupelo Quarterly
"ADAM O. DAVIS' brilliant debut, Index of Haunted Houses, is an American ghost tour that induces paroxysms of weeping, melancholia, joy, and bewilderment. "
-Poetry International, online
"A travelogue of haunted houses. Ghost prose poems. Foggy, nostalgic fragments that feel like both erasure and haiku. I bought this collection after hearing Davis read and discuss (in particular how he wanted to include a book within a book). This collection is one to read once the sun goes to sleep."
-"Favorite Authors (and Their Books) That I Read in 2020," Neon Pajamas
"A haunting is ruptural; an out-of-joint excess that interrupts the cover-up. We ghost a lot & get ghosted, mostly ourselves & history. Leave it to a poet to dive into all this: (the heart, best not look in there), but Davis looks & is appropriately careful; measured: his words tip-toe through their subjects, lifting objects & ideas up [with] the tip of a pencil; shining light into neglected corners, & as a result truly memorable phrases emerge."
-Tourniquet Review, online
"In Davis' debut poetry collection, Index of Haunted Houses, there is a ghost in every living room and a skeleton in every closet. Ghosts of lost technologies and underwater mortgages. Skeletons of half-built subdivisions, of recliners decomposing in junkyards, of cars abandoned by drivers who can't remember where in the world they thought they were going. Your ghosts. My skeletons. Our monsters. In Index of Haunted Houses, they are all present and eager to tell their tales of ruin and the occasional redemption, and Davis is just as ready to tell them."
-"Column: San Diego poet Adam O. Davis thinks it's time to face our ghosts," The San Diego Union Tribune
"While Adam O. Davis's debut, hybrid collection of original photography and poetry, Index of Haunted Houses focuses on ghosts and the places where they linger, its spectral figures never appear overtly. Davis leaves their presence to be sensed by readers as they explore the spaces of the poems in this book, which is often filled with white space and possibility....[L]ike any good ghost story, Index of Haunted Houses leaves just enough room for readers to investigate for themselves."
-New Ohio Review, online
"Davis' calculated use of language and form means that the varied scenes feel part of each other. We feel the literal word "bones" in one poem echoed by the bones in others. Desert cities, radios, coins used as metaphors, granaries and more come up not enough to be redundant, but often enough to feel like a sort of mantra. The mysteries in Davis' work are tail lights on the sides of highways in Ohio and the oilfields of Los Angeles, they're beasts in Nebraska, granaries in a small town or ghosts in unnamed cities....Like ghosts and summer-sticky road trips alike, Davis' work pairs a timeless and creepy America with hauntings, longing and curiosity."
-"Adam O. Davis' 'Index Of Haunted Houses' Takes A Roadtrip Through An American Past," KPBS
"I'm fascinated by San Diego, California poet Adam O. Davis' full-length debut, Index of Haunted Houses. . . . His poems are perfectly dense, lyrically open and wonderfully precise, offering not a single wasted word, space or image."
-Rob McKlennan
"Hypervigilant, fidgety, and frightened as it should be, Index of Haunted Houses nonetheless shows us how to rake through the rubble for what we might still rebuild with, and in its consummate achievement, generates flashes of much heretofore unseen beauty, unleashing phrases that 'arc like / swans in (the) cochlea's / cul-de-sac.'"
-Timothy Donnelly
"The reader finds herself in America's afterlife, with Ma Bell's pre-automation telephone operators. This is the elegant lyricism of 'too late,' calling 'Ladies please wake up. I want to try again.'"
-Rae Armantrout
"Adam O. Davis has written a brilliant book about our ghosts-personal, political, mythic, lyrical, and yet very real. He documents and chronicles the musics of the unsaid, melodies unheard. There is America in these pages and there is also childhood, parenthood, a rhythm and nuance of being. I love this music."
-Ilya Kaminsky
"From 'the body of New Jersey' to 'the desert/like a house of belief,' the poems of Index of Haunted Houses traverse the entirety of time and space that we call American. In this book, Adam O. Davis means for language as precise as 'ledgers lavish with loss,' to lead us to the place within us where history meets landscape. This is a brilliant debut."
-Jericho Brown
"Time and again I was pulled in, kept close to the collisions between the self and the passage of time which populate the poems. The beauty of the language engenders intimacy. The reader easily steps into the text. The wonderful imagination of this poet reminds us the mind-lyric space-is an astonishing nexus."
-Eduardo C. Corral
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Louisville
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 8 mm
Weight
136 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-946448-66-8 (9781946448668)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Adam O. Davis' poems have appeared in many journals, including The Believer, Boston Review, Gulf Coast, The Paris Review, The Southern Review, and ZYZZYVA. The recipient of the 2016 George Bogin Award from the Poetry Society of America, he has received grants and fellowships from Columbia University, Western Michigan University, and Vermont Studio Center. A graduate of the University of California, Riverside and Columbia University, he lives in San Diego, California where he teaches English literature at The Bishop's School. He was also once hit by lightning. It felt, more or less, like you'd expect.