Off the Map by Richard Luftig

In Off The Map, Richard Luftig writes a poetry of place: a place of the vanishing family farm and of a small town America struggling against those changes which threaten the very fabric of its life.

His poems may in one sitting be ironic, humorous, or like a genial poke in the ribs from a friend who knows you well. One who knows that what really lies beneath those ribs is a broken heart.

An Excerpt

“In Kadoka, South Dakota,
the main business of town is dying.
The worn-out flat-front, sand-stone
stores huddle and shield
their faces from a constant,

grinding wind. The town lists
to railroads, its back pressed
flush to rusting tracks, waiting
for trains that won’t come anymore.
Out from Kadoka, the ribbon roads

crease black and empty fields,
lands so flat you can drop a line
and weight and come up plumb
crazy from the straightness of it all.”

About the Author

Richard Luftig is a professor of educational psychology and special education at Miami University in Ohio. He is a recipient of the Cincinnati Post-Corbett Foundation Award for Literature, numerous Ohio Poetry Day awards and was a semi finalist for the Emily Dickinson Society Award. His poems have appeared in many literary journals in the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia, Finland, and England among others. His first chapbook Sound Effects was nominated by his publisher for a Pushcart Poetry Prize. This is his third chapbook of poetry.