explores the inescapable ambivalence we hold toward the places of our upbringing. In 68 exquisitely detailed poems, 19 photographs, and two essays, Phillip Howerton considers aspects of the world into which he was born--specifically the rivers, farms, fish, birds, and stubborn humans of the rural Ozarks. As his explorations of "Folks, Living and Dead," "Amusements," and "Displacements" demonstrate, these elements may be gods of our own creation, gods which we simultaneously reject and embrace.