About the Book This volume, the first to span the forty-year career of Nebraska state poet William Kloefkorn, brings together the best-known and most beloved poems by one of the most important Midwestern poets of the last half century, collecting work from limited editions and hard-to-find books along with Kloefkorns most anthologized poems--Back cover. Book Synopsis This volume, the first to span the forty-year career of Nebraska state poet William Kloefkorn, brings together the best-known and most beloved poems by one of the most important Midwestern poets of the last half century. Collecting work from limited editions and hard-to-find books, along with Kloefkorns most anthologized poems, Swallowing the Soap is an indispensable one-volume compendium of the work of a major American poet. These poems aim for nothing less than the impossible: to understand what it means to be alive and human on this moveable earth, writes the editor, Ted Genoways. Swallowing the Soap is filled with the panoramic landscapes of Kansas and Nebraska, the stories of the rough and tender people who live there, and the moments of heartache, brutality, loss, and redeeming joy that shape their lives. It offers a vision, at once intimate and expansive, of the world of the Great Plains as seen by one of its most eloquent poets. Review Quotes Kloefkorns ear for the midwestern rural vernacular is pitch-perfect, and his lines of dialogue and bits of country speech are alternately hilarious and deeply poignant.--Michael Sowder, Western American Literature There is always the rock; there is always Kloefkorn: generous, honest, ornery, clear-eyed. I invite you to read this very significant book, No. 2 pencil in hand, and mark your favorites.--Marge Saiser, Lincoln Journal Star -- (4/9/2011 12:00:00 AM) About the Author William Kloefkorn (1932-2011) was an emeritus professor of English at Nebraska Wesleyan University and Nebraskas state poet. He is the author of many volumes of poetry and a four-volume memoir: This Death by Drowning , Restoring the Burnt Child , At Home on This Moveable Earth , and Breathing in the Fullness of Time , all published by the University of Nebraska Press. Ted Genoways is the editor of Virginia Quarterly Review and the author of Bullroarer: A Sequence . He has edited numerous books, including The Selected Poems of Miguel Hernndez .