Finding Token Creek: New & Selected Writing, 1975-2020

Robert Alexander grew up in Massachusetts. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and for several years taught in the Madison Public Schools. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, he worked for many years as a freelance editor. From 1993-2001, he was a contributing editor at New Rivers Press, serving the final two years as New Rivers' creative director. Alexander is the founding editor of the Marie Alexander Poetry Series at White Pine Press. He divides his time between southern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
His books of poetry include White Pine Sucker River, What the Raven Said, and Richmond Burning. In addition, he has two works of literary history, Five Forks: Waterloo of the Confederacy, and The Northwest Ordinance: Constitutional Politics and the Theft of Native Land.

CONTENTS


Introduction: Prose/Poetry


Richmond Burning

Clouds of Swallows
Maggie May
Late One Night
Frog-pond in April
Afternoon
Richmond Burning
This Year Ralph Sees
What We Can Learn from Other Primates
Muskrat
After the Reading
The Clouds Pregnant with Rain
Two about Dogs
Pedestal
Ralph Rises Early
Archive
Like Our Shadow-Selves
September
Whatever Dance
Crows
Turtle in the Afternoon
A Black Spruce Meditation
A Puffball Nearly Spherical


from What the Raven Said

Ralph in His Canoe
Ralph Goes to the Birds
I n a Month This Will All Be
The Naming of Muskrat Point
Every Day Ralph
The Night the Honey Locusts Bloom
Vacation Notes
Ralph Attends the Turtle Convention
Lake Solstice
Eagle and Otter at Midsummer
In the Sportsman
Ralph Among the Lily Pads
What I Wanted to Tell You
On the Last Day of Summer
Only in Retrospect
Ralph Wakes One Morning
Old Possum
Mosquito Bay
Ralph Wakes One Morning
What the Raven Said
Paddler's Technique
Now the Lake is Empty


from White Pine Sucker River

Where Ralph Lived
At the Party
From Where He Sat
White Pine Sucker River
Weekend
Mickey
Library
Was It Louis Aragon
A Joe Pass Guitar Solo
One of the Guys
Every Night He'd See Her
Finding Token Creek
My Father Had a Small Lab
For Years My Father
At Night the Street
Rain
Ralph Finds a New Park
Corn
Supermarkets
Vacation
Garage
Snow at Ten O'clock


from Five Forks: Waterloo of the Confederacy

Calhoun's Monument


postscript: Ralph & the Rabbit