Poet. Maker. Professor.

Can we say “Cowboy” anymore? Have we waited long enough to need by now? Christian Anton Gerard’s second poetry collection is a story of dissolution and resolution, of a world made round by spokeshave and brute imagining. The poet’s willow-hearted son sleeps in iambs; the bucket-truck mechanic plays Night Moves on a blue guitar; Spenser’s Calidore is perhaps the alcoholic riding ragged in an F-150. At its fissive core are questions of love expired, love recovered, and self-recognition: “My voice fire-pop and invitation” admits Holdfast’s speaker, “I woke a tulip field at sunrise.” Gerard shows us the pasture of that weedy, human understanding in all its lushness and courtesy. Then, like the student videographer of its opening poem, he lowers the camera and extends his hand.

Christian Anton Gerard is the author of Holdfast (C&R Press2017) and Wilmot Here, Collect For Stella (WordTech, 2014). His work appears widely in national and international magazines. Gerard has received scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Prague Summer Program, Pushcart Prize nominations, an Academy of American Poets Award, and the 2013 Iron Horse Literary Review Discovered Voices Award.

When he’s not working, Gerard can be found fishing (usually just standing next to oceans, lakes, or rivers), learning to work wood (avoiding the ER), or indulging his love for home improvement projects of all kinds (after watching hours of do-it-yourself YouTube videos).

Christian holds a B.A. from Miami University (OH), an M.F.A from Old Dominion University and a Ph.D in English from the University of Tennessee. He lives in Fort Smith, AR, where he’s an Assistant Professor of English, Rhetoric, and Writing at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith.

Publications