In the Days That Followed - by Kevin Goodan (Paperback)

About the Book

"Following the news of a long-past lover's death, In the Days That Followed grapples with the sudden knowledge of the existence of a stillborn child conceived out of wedlock and never named, and never spoken of after the relationship had ended. How do you miss someone who you never even knew? It is within this distillation of loss, of distance, and grief, that allows us to form the unborn, the unnamed, the absent parts of ourselves into the language, into the landscape, and give them a fleeting figure. By giving them a voice and a shadow, a gesture of acknowledgment, we can give a sweet farewell from the earth, from our past, and from their future they were never granted"--

Book Synopsis

Following the news of a long-past lover's death, In The Days That Followed grapples with the sudden knowledge of the existence of a stillborn child conceived out of wedlock and never named, and never spoken of after the relationship had ended.

How do you miss someone who you never even knew?

It is within this distillation of loss, of distance, and grief, that allows us to form the unborn, the unnamed, the absent parts of ourselves into the language, into the landscape, and give them a fleeting figure. By giving them a voice and a shadow, a gesture of acknowledgment, we can give a sweet farewell from the earth, from our past, and from their future they were never granted.

Review Quotes

"In these tight bursts of images Goodan displays a thrilling facility to observe the minutiae of the natural world, to inhabit the simple moments of the earth's music, and to distill these observations into language that will continue to resonate in the body long after it's been read."
--Marc Beaudin, Big Sky Journal

"Goodan marks where human interest and the natural world meet, or sometimes clash. He echoes Emily Dickinson ... The pages are rain-soaked and ghost-haunted, creating a slightly melancholy atmosphere. He's a new name for me though this is his seventh collection; I'd happily read more."
--Rebecca Foster, Bookish Beck

"Kevin Goodan's In the Days That Followed was the best companion on a Metro-North train cross-states. Atmospheric, lyrical, contemplative, it was the escape and slowdown I needed."
--Joseph O. Legaspi

"In book after book, Kevin Goodan's bright eye sees the world keenly as a raptor's. Rapt. Raptor. Rapture. All meaning to seize or be seized. Reading In the Days That Followed, I am raptured. Hungry for each new page and grateful for the precise, lyric attention Goodan pays to the world."
--Camille Dungy

About the Author

Raised on the Flathead Indian Reservation in Western Montana, Kevin Goodan began working for the U.S. Forest Service at a young age, and attended the Universities of Montana and Massachusetts. He has lived in Northern Ireland, and lectured at universities on terrorism. His poems have been published in Ploughshares and other journals. Currently, he resides in the Upper Valley region of New Hampshire.