{"product_id":"lucy-the-elephant-wins-in-a-landslide-9781968610111","title":"Lucy the Elephant Wins in a Landslide","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGRAND PRIZE WINNER, THE POETRY BOX CHAPBOOK PRIZE 2025\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAS SELECTED BY GEORGE BILGERE\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeing alive is strange. Growing up a few miles from a giant elephant that was a hotel and is now a National Historic Landmark can help put things into perspective. \u003cem\u003eLucy the Elephant Wins in a Landslide\u003c\/em\u003e is a coming-of-age story for the deeply perplexed. It is a love letter to New Jersey from someone who has lived and worked all over the Garden State. It is an abandoned Ferris Wheel overlooking a run-down casino. It is a seagull stealing what you thought was your last cheese fry, until you look in the bucket and find with great joy there's still one more.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e---Review Excerpts---\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"...these poems are spoken in one of the freshest, most compelling voices I have encountered in years. He manages the difficult trick of being both funny and deeply serious in the same poem. It's like he peeled off layers of old paint from the English language to discover a long-lost masterpiece.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e-GEORGE BILGERE, contest judge, author of \u003cem\u003eCheap Motels of My Youth\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"John Arthur keeps us firmly grounded in the state of New Jersey....The environment breeds both fantasy and cynicism with poems bringing us past the top of the Ferris wheel to the moon or using the implosion of a casino to explain gravity to a child.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e-DEBORAH BAYER, author of \u003cem\u003eRope Made of Bandages\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"John Arthur writes from the quiet fault lines between urgency and inaction, compassion and self-preservation...a mash up between craft and the everyday colloquial speech of the playground. These poems refuse easy consolations, instead they live and linger...\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e -MATTHEW LIPPMAN, author of \u003cem\u003eWe Are All Sleeping with Our Sneakers On\u003c\/em\u003e \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eArthur, John:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - John Arthur is a writer and musician from New Jersey. His work has appeared in Rattle, DIAGRAM, Frogpond, Failbetter, trampset, ONE ART, and many other places. He has worked as a valet at a casino, a waiter, a Ferris Wheel operator, a cook, a pizza delivery driver, a fast food delivery driver, a kati roll delivery driver, a landscaper for a week or so, a journalist, an editor, a librarian, a library director, a municipal manager, and for one long, hot day as a guy going door to door asking if you'd like to donate to the Sierra Club. His band is The Deafening Colors.","brand":"Poetry Box","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52038903398674,"sku":"9781968610111","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_d53450c8-93fa-4000-bf09-c7ac59524b44.jpg?v=1771340419","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/lucy-the-elephant-wins-in-a-landslide-9781968610111","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}