“By stoking the image-embers and syllable-sparks found in myths, the Bible, and the American Southwest, Casey Thayer has ignited his diction and his music. This is a linguistically thrilling and pictorial-rich book. . . . He reminds us love is myth, religion, and tenderly brutal landscape. Self-Portrait with Spurs and Sulfur is a dazzling debut.”—Eduardo C. Corral, author of Slow Lightning: Poems
“A rollicking, sexually-charged tour-de-force of language, a self-portrait which refuses the glib mannerism of the genre and which shows us, indeed, what a self can be.”—Colorado Review
“Readers, beware. In Casey Thayer’s debut book sometimes we’re him, sometimes we’re them, sometimes we’re her, sometimes the dog, a horse, a saddle, and more. Slippage of the speaker is one of the highlights here. But love, desire, the world of desert and ocean—they never slip. And here is art again, empathy spun out on the page.”
—Hilda Raz, author of All Odd and Splendid
“An emotionally rich, musically brilliant collection of poems—one that examines the life of a romantic relationship (set against the wild landscape and endless highways of Texas) with wit, intelligence, and ultimately, grace.”
—Kevin Prufer, author of In a Beautiful Country
