Tucumcari
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Last month Mr. G and I took the trip, sticking to Route 66 as much as possible, just as I did with the family minus my brothers in 1980. In Tucumcari we looked for the two motels that I stayed in then. The Lasso was a real pit as I remember. Years later I would write about it in a poem set in Cleveland. I still recall the signs in wood frames screwed to the walls asking not to steal the television. The shower in the Lasso was worrisome. It was so stained and dirty that I was certain I’d be slimier after taking a shower than I already was from the day’s ride through Texas with the sun boring through the window and the stream of air conditioning blocked by my dad’s head. I still chose to step in the tub and take my chances.
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About the Book
All things far away are worthy of meditation, say the authors of Tucumcari, a travel journal tracing the crazy routes backwards from hometowns to westward visions of an alternate life. Presented in essay, poems and four unabashed interviews, Tucumcari probes history’s intersections of public & private demons, as well as decisions made in a family’s past that alter the course of our lives. “Tucumcari takes us from where we are…to what made us who we are…to who we might have been…to who we might yet be…and back again.” --Cee Williams, author of 12 Poems
About the Author
Megan Collins was born in Urbana, Illinois. She pursued a degree late in life at Penn State where her main focus was poetry. She has poems published in an anthology and student literary journal. She was also an assistant editor for Penn State’s literary journal Lake Effect. Collins currently resides with her life partner in Pennsylvania, where she works with intellectually challenged adults as a life skills coach and continues writing poetry and short stories. Geoff Peterson, a poet & novelist, was born in Erie, PA and educated in the Pacific Northwest under the guidance of John Keeble and James J. McAuley at Eastern Washington University where he co-edited Willow Springs for a year. In 2003 he founded the Actors’ Mission in Wyoming, a free theatre providing meals and American classic plays. Most recently he published Dark Is My Therapy, the latest volume in his series The Literature of Missing Persons. Mr. Peterson resides at the former Richford Hotel in Erie.