Life as a Crossword Puzzle was selected by Guest Judge Tyler Meier (Kenyon Review) as the winning manuscript for Ohio in the Open Thread 2009 Tri-State Chapbook Contest.
Of the chapbook, Meier says:
“The tonal textures-mini-tragedies, high comedy, irony in sequins, cheap jokes, silver-pure pathos, poems that feel like a clemency-mash up and make something that looks at once like a chimera, then a mirror. And perhaps that’s why I’m drawn to this chapbook. Always accessible, Falck is making possible what normally isn’t possible: fantasy moonlighting as realism, irony dressed up in the ‘I mean this with all my heart’ sweatpants.”
Sample Poems
1.Down
Outside the sun short-circuits,
the grass becomes a complicated mess
and the boy studies
the line on his father’s face
before shifting awkwardly
in his plastic yellow lawnchair.
Published in H_NGM_N #4
6. Across
His brother was a professor. A complex map on the inside. And the
1980′s were a forged era. They disappeared in the back row of
cinema 8, where the sticky spot on the floor was not spilled soda.
He once placed headlines on people’s doormats, rang doorbells
to learn how to run away. Once he sang in the wind. Now, he lives
in a one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of town. He watches
his girlfriend strut around the kitchen in high heels, telling him she
knows the way to the next American Dream. Everyone wants
something.
Published in Backwards City Review, issue 3