Vanishing Points: Poems and Photographs of Texas Roadside Memorials

Front Cover
Sarah Cortez
Texas Review Press, 2016 - Literary Collections - 136 pages
Along Texas roadways rest thousands of contemplative shrines, usually marked by small, white metal crosses. Anchored by the stunning photography of roadside memorials by Dan Streck, this landmark book allows four poets to respond to the visual summons of roadside memorials with lyric intensity and eloquent ekphrasis: Larry D. Thomas, Jack B. Bedell, Sarah Cortez, and Loueva Smith. Graphic designer Nancy J. Parsons brings her award-winning skills to perfectly meld photography with poetry in this gorgeous volume.



A Plain, White Cross



It lists slightly

beside the highway.

Whoever placed it there

drove its upright



deep into the earth,

intimate with the tragedy

of wind and driving rain.

Knowing the certainty



of erasure, they left it

nameless, just a simple

wooden cross harboring,

for a while, the traces



of unbearable loss.

As if lit from within

with white light, it glows

beside the silent highway:



white light stark

as the grief of the bereaved,

white as the clouds above,

streaking, disintegrating.



Larry D. Thomas

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About the author (2016)

SARAH CORTEZ, resident of Houston, is the author of two poetry collections, How to Undress a Cop and Cold Blue Steel, a finalist in the Writers' League of Texas awards, and a memoir, Walking Home: Growing Up Hispanic in Houston. She is the winner of the PEN Texas literary award in poetry and the Southwest Book Award.

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