Yellowrocket: Poems

by Todd Boss

“Sure to be a classic, and the beginning of a long and glorious career.”―Sherman Alexie Increasingly, Todd Boss has been attracting attention, with poems in the Paris Review and The New Yorker and a series in Poetry . His first collection, set in the Midwest, alternately features a childhood Wisconsin farm, the record-breaking storm that destroyed it, and the turbulent marriage that recalls it. Love and wonder mingle in these lines.

Genres: Poetry

122 pages, Paperback

First published November 17, 2008

About the author

Todd Boss, a critically-acclaimed poet, librettist, public artist, and film producer, holds a diverse career with a passion for collaboration. His works for both page and stage have been read and produced throughout the world.

Boss’s 2008 poetry debut Yellowrocket was followed by Pitch in 2012, Tough Luck in 2017, and Someday the Plan of a Town, , all from W. W. Norton & Co. Todd’s poems have appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, The London Times, The New Yorker, NPR, Best American Poetry, and Virginia Quarterly Review, which called Yellowrocket, “one of the year’s 10 best poetry books” and awarded Todd the Emily Clark Balch Prize. Yellowrocket was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award and was named a Midwest Booksellers’ Honor Book for Poetry. Pitch was also a Minnesota Book Award finalist and won the Midwest Booksellers’ Choice Award.

With a strong sensitivity to the marriage of words and music, Todd has worked closely with composers as a librettist and lyricist. His first evening-length opera, Panic, a verse retelling of Knut Hamsun’s 1896 novella Pan and collaboration with Boston Conservatory’s Andy Vores, premiered in 2014. Most frequently, Boss collaborates on libretti for choral and dramatic works with award-winning composer Jake Runestad. Together, Todd and Jake have written commissioned works for the Choral Arts Society of Washington D.C., the Dallas Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, the Larimer Chorale & Orchestra, Cal State Long Beach, and others. Their collaborations have been heard around the world at venues such as New York’s Carnegie Hall, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, and Minneapolis’s Orchestra Hall.

Deeply interested in allowing anyone to encounter meaningful art, Todd is also a public artist. In a 2012 public art installation, Todd anchored 35 oversized life rings in the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis to mark the 5th anniversary of the 35W Bridge collapse. He paired the month-long installation with his 35-poem cycle, “Fragments for the 35W Bridge,” which the Star Tribune printed in its entirety on opening day. The project was a collaboration with Swedish artist Maja Spasova. Todd’s second installation, a monumental poetry film projection onto the entire block-wide facade of Saint Paul’s historic Union Depot, had its debut in October 2014. In 2017, he unveiled the world’s first public transit virtual reality experience with “Chaos on the Green Line,” a wordless VR poem that can only be experienced on the Green Line LRT train in Saint Paul, using the “Chaos on the Green Line” app and a cardboard viewer.

Todd’s passion for helping contemporary poetry reach a wider audience led him to become the founding Executive and Artistic Director of Motionpoems, the world’s only poetry film company. Motionpoems’ annual season of 15-20 films premieres have had showings across the country from Los Angeles to New York City. More at motionpoems.org.

Todd has been a nomad since 2018, living with just two suitcases of belongings and traveling the world. Learn more at toddbossoriginals.com

Reviews

[Lisa]

Some great poems in form. The few free-verse often fall flat or feel sentimental for some reason. Boss is best when sound reigns

[Kasandra]

The musicality inherent in these poems is insistent and haunting. Boss is a master of rhyme, particularly internal rhyme, and this book takes you by the hand and pulls you through - meditations on nature, family, and love and the storms we all endure. I particularly liked "In the Morning We Found", "Don't Come Home", "Tangled Hangers and All,", "What Yesterday Appeared a Spark", and "How Smokes the Smolder", but there's plenty more here to savor and re-read. An excellent book, highly recommended.

[Mikaila Smith]

I read The Hush of the Very Good when it was featured on The Poetry Foundation website, and I immediately bought this book. It definitely did not disappoint. A poignant journey through the author’s relationships with his family, his wife, and the natural world from which he draws so much inspiration. This has earned a permanent spot in my library, and I would absolutely recommend it.

[Andrea]

My first introduction to the poetry of Todd Boss, I bought this book after hearing him read from it at a meeting of my mother's AAUW chapter in St. Paul. He has a masterful use of language.

[Steven Withrow]

Boss's best poems in this collection -- possibly numbering a dozen or a few more than that -- are truly superb. My favorite poem of his -- not in this collection -- is "The God of Our Farm Had Blades" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGcbIK...), but I also love (and won't soon or ever forget) "The Hush of the Very Good," "Ere We Are Aware," "Nocturne," "How Smokes the Smolder," and "One Can Miss Mountains."

I am curious about the chronology of when these poems were written, as this is a large book for a first collection, which adds to its unevenness, and I'd like to get a better sense of Boss's development. I wish I could handle and arrange syllable sounds as well as Boss does, and I look forward to reading his next collection.

[Natalie]

When was the last time you read a book of poetry cover to cover? I am not sure if I ever had til I got this slim volume of poems by Todd Boss. The images and the voices of young and old for whom work, the cold, and struggle are everyday occurrences rarely put into words become live on the page. It's like a series of staged dramas in just enough words. Vignettes of struggle, lives, nature, parenthood, childhood blend into one another in a page turning way. I could see places and people I have known in these poems.

[Kirby]

This small book of poems which explore the stormy elements of life -- from stormy childhood events, to a stormy marriage, and to the storms in our struggles to be human -- is rich, reflective and inventive. There are lighter moments, too -- celebrations of children, a hysterically funny poem about a possible flirtation at the grocery store, and homages to beloved grandparents. Not every poem is equally strong, but overall this volume is one you'll want to own.

[Cathy Douglas]

I picked this up after hearing the poet read his work at the Wisconsin Book Festival. I like his style, which is direct, and his themes, which are wound tightly into everyday life. He writes from the perspective of a farm kid, and that gives the poems their distinctive rural flavor.

It's the kind of collection where you read the poems one at a time, and just let them sit.

[Mahala Helf]

He really is BOSS!
Don’t dip, start with the very first poem “Ruin.” to be transported. Don’t skip anything in One, Two or Three. There’s as much care in their progression as in the individual poems.
After that, less cohesive, more diversity of style( if you love Tony Hoagland, Emily Dickinson and/or Billy Collins there are echoes) . And some wonderful silly love poems!

[Ann Klefstad]

Todd's a poet with an unmistakable, original voice. He's a lyricist and a sharp-eyed--even say hard-eyed, sometimes--observer of the most tender subjects. Not since Ted Roethke has the natural world had such a testifier. Gotta read this--

[Phyllis Olson]

I've discovered the "save" button; problem solved. Jeanie says that golden eagles really are found in Wisconsin, so I'm moving Todd Boss to 5 stars (some very nice poems in here as well) and myself to 3. Maybe 2.

[Drac329]

I truly love this. His level of intimacy with the common place things in the world is incredible. In addition he’s a (fairly) local boy. Wisconsin’s close enough to be local, right? It’s one of those books that inspire you to write, but frustrates you because you can’t do it as well as he does!

[Adam Werley]

Some really great stuff, some really so-so stuff. For a genre I am not crazy about, I did get some enjoyment out of this book. Check it out, esp. if you have midwestern or farming roots (I only have one of those...).

[Susannah]

What a lyrical collection of poems! Trenchant insights around every corner evince the poet's quiet confidence with both his form and the eccentricities of our day-to-day rituals. Just lovely.

[Heid]

Liking Todd Boss and his cleverness

[elissa]

sherman alexie said, "He can make any rhyme feel like a concealed weapon." i've been proofed.

[Tiffany]

If you don't read them aloud, preferably twice, you're missing a lot.

[Caroline]

enjoyed some of these poems a LOT

[Christa]

A beautiful book of poems about family life and home, very accessible author from Wisconsin

[Tina Schumann]

What can I say - Boss is boss. He is hugely talented, both on a humanistic level and technically. If you want to see how tight, well-rounded poems are written don't miss Todd Boss.

[Charlee]

I love Todd Boss's writing. He has a wonderful sensitivity to sound and rhythm.

[Carol A]

Todd Boss certainly is a master of internal rhyme, as the cover notes suggest. Poem after poem he does amazing things with language.

[Ida]

Excellent poetry. And I read a lot of poetry.

[Allison]

Todd Boss does a remarkable job of using the sounds of words to drive his poems. I was hooked with the first poem, "Ruin," and enjoyed the majority of the other poems in this collection as well.

[P.M.F. Johnson]

Pithy, brilliant poems, clear as a mountain stream.