The Weather in Normal

In her collection The Weather in Normal, Carrie Etter laments the loss of her hometown of Normal, Illinois through the death of her parents, the sale of the family home, and the effects of climate change on Illinois' landscape and lives. The author's restlessly inventive use of multiple tones, shifting line lengths, and fresh turns of phrase are as much a means of conveying complex and paradoxical emotions as they are a determined formal strategy to avoid cliché. Shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry for her last collection, Imagined Sons, Etter has built a following based on her highly original and deeply emotive poetry.