The Blue-Collar Sun

the blue-collar sun by Lucas Farrell of Townshend, Vermont. The winner of the 2020 Sundog Poetry Book Award for a 1st or 2nd manuscript by a Vermont-based poet, selected by final judge, Mary Ruefle. Cover art by Emily Mason.   Mary Ruefle’s Final Judge Citation: ’The world is hard to find once you start looking for it’ — from its beginning, this book activates such a search (and sometimes wants to walk away from it) in such a startling way that by the breath-taking final section the poet finds himself searching for his relationship to a fish hook. Which of all objects looks most like a question mark, so the search becomes not one for answers but for the questions themselves, that Rilkean stance. Questions carry with them the obligation to go on, to carry on in any direction they may take us, and for the sake of the art of poetry Lucas Farrell does just that. His is a mind that never stops moving.  Praise for the blue-collar sun: “Lucas Farrell’s new collection of poetry rises over an a