Stray Latitudes: Poems

The poems in Dan Leach's debut collection present lyrical portraits of dying (if not already dead) suburban neighborhoods in South Carolina. Stalled-out construction sites, abandoned shopping malls, and builder grade houses that seem haunted before they're even sold--these are the doomed spaces that populate Leach's work. Stray Latitudes investigates the spiritual and geographical crises of the New South, pitting the individual need for identity against the recent swell of nationalism and the ongoing creep of capitalism. Like the vagrant creature for which the book is named, these are poems that scratch and claw in their search for a place to call home.

DAN LEACH has published work in Copper Nickel, The Southwest Review, and The Sun. He has two collections of short fiction: Floods and Fires (University of North Georgia, 2017) and Dead Mediums (Trident Press, 2022). He holds an MFA from Warren Wilson and currently teaches writing at Charleston Southern University. Stray Latitudes is his first collection of poetry.