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[The Roof Rat Review.]

Jürgen Becker, Okla Elliott (trans). Blackbirds in September: Selected Shorter Poems of Jurgen Becker. Black Lawrence Press, 2015. The obliquity and brevity made me think of Celan, a bit, though the prosy music is completely different.

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Texts and images copyright (C) 2022 Pauline Kerschen. Layout adapted from the Single A Tumblr theme by businessbullpen. The Greater Roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus) has zygodactylic feet, leaving X-shaped tracks with ambiguous direction. The Pueblo and Hopi used the X symbol to mislead evil spirits. Border folklore in the early twentieth century held that a roadrunner would lead a lost traveler back to his path. In Mexico the roadrunner is known as paisano, countryman.