Thunderbird Inn by Collin Callahan
I’ll begin on a personal note: I was still an undergrad at the University of Arkansas when Collin Callahan was here completing his MFA in poetry. I remember his fourth-year reading well. I marveled at how his work invited ordinary elements—roads and motels—to be bound tightly together by his contained lines and lyrical language. But this review is special to me for another reason: Collin was one of the Arkansas International’s founding members.
In Thunderbird Inn, the speaker tells a story of a bender across America. We traverse at their side, along with their friend Richard, across desolate landscapes, zooming in on lackluster places: tunnels, motels and inns, buses, jail cells, parks, and more. Destinations like the Twinkling Cow in “Dreamland” break open a curious brand of love. “The wind is / a milkshake / blender cup,” the speaker recounts. Within the collection, love is inextricably tied to place, but the link is troubled. Many of the poems are shaped like coffins; death-stricken structures with startling descriptions like “razorblade shadows,” “scarecrow of rabbit bones,” and a nacho machine that “vomits gold,” revealing the collection’s devastating truth: that this love comes with its risks.
In “Milk Tooth,” the speaker tells how “a mouse / gnaws its pink leg,” and desperately pleads, “Look at me. / Tell me I matter.” This desperation is what drives the collection toward not so much a hopeful triumph over decay, but rather an opportunity to examine the many places on a map overlooked. And like the tired driver remarking at some motel off the side of the road, we become part of a collective of passersby, leaving behind parts of ourselves with the things we pass.
—Review by Elizabeth Muscari
