What the Long Poem Says About Me

What the Long Poem Says About Me

A mysterious poem appearing midway through Tiana Clark’s new collection, Scorched Earth, details an ambiguous imagined encounter in a Nashville bar. A father lurks over a steak he can’t eat while a daughter he’s never met works her shift. But then, abruptly, the scene collapses, dissolving into the poet’s ongoing confusion over how to end her poem. Photo: Adrianne Mathiowetz Photography Without warning, the uneasy, noirish tone of the poem’s app…