Halfway through Mirage and Tar, the poet goes under. A leashed paddleboard, a July current on the Ocoee River, and a voice in the water that knows him. The poems that follow are written from the far side of that afternoon, and the ones that come before it now read like preparation: a mirror propped against a backyard fence, a father's maps folded back along their creases, butterscotch suns at the Candy Lady's door, Pessoa's café in Lisbon, an aunt's house sealed shut for twenty years.
The question underneath these poems is a plain one: what is an ordinary day worth once you've nearly left it? The answers come by paying attention: to crows and ice storms, to birthdays and gray bats, to the haunted ridges of Chattanooga, to the road ahead in summer heat, shimmering where mirage meets tar.
Mirage and Tar is Chad Prevost's fourth full-length collection. It moves through open and received forms alike, including two sonnets, a villanelle, an epistolary poem from Missionary Ridge, and a five-part cento woven from the lines of more than fifty poets.
"...strong music, a stone blind love of language (the only kind of love that matters), and a wild, wild heart." -Tom Lux