Tin Can Tourist

by Scott Hightower

Book Overview

A world of history is a world of destinations and possibilities. In Tin Can Tourist Scott Hightower draws from a legacy larger than the limits of personal history, body, and brand. From the harsh Protestant landscape of his native central Texas to the pageantry of the historical architecture of St. Maria in Trastevere, Rome, he persues the limit of the poet. Where exactly does one begin and the world start? Hightower reflects a world containing...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0823221520
• ISBN13: 9780823221523
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: Fordham University Press
• Length: 79 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

An Archive of Memories

Scott Hightower's inward insights and perceptions of the world around him blaze brilliantly within these poems. Unlike many poets out there he employs two key strengths, first by employing language that is not overly flowery or pretentious, but rather that is accessible to the reader. This is central to the beauty of his work, and, secondly, it is his passion, honesty, and overall emotional intensity that shine through so boldly. Though subtle at first, the reader himself becomes the "Tin Can Tourist" wandering through the landscape of Mr. Hightower's mind, from his childhood in Texas to New York, to comments about Northern Africa, to the Italian penninsula. The scope is wide, boundless like the poet's imagination. He is tied down by neither superficial nor forced imagery, but is instead set free by the love for people and places that circumvents this work. Though his first book, Mr. Hightower has been writing poetry for many years, and it is this seasoned skill that shines through bearing the clarity that only a true poet can provide -- with the aid of the age-old Muse, of course. Like the keepsakes that a traveller may claim along the way, this book is something to be forever treasured.

One of the Best

Why did it take so long? Scott Hightower has been writing great poetry for a while now, but only recently has it found it's way into a volume. Tin Can Tourist is an amazing collection of beautiful poems. It's a cornucopia of imagery language and place. Each page and poem is a treat, I have returned to this book time and time again. It only gets better folks. If you like J. D. McClatchy, Mark Doty, Marie Ponsot, or Richard Howard you'll love this book. Heck, if you like words you'll love this book. It's a joy and a permanent fixture on reading list.

Scott Hightower's Tin Can Tourist

Here is a wonderful first book that employs the markers that have come to stand, in Texas, in Rome, for permanence, from fence to forum--the legal lattice-work of land ownership, graves, burial mounds--in a brilliant meditation on transience that displaces all of these things. As you read this book, the title begins to shimmer, pointing to our own passing, the temporary shelter we have taken here on earth, as tourists in time.

An Intelligent and Perceptive Book

The voice in this debut collection communicates experience and observation with a confidence that subverts the self-centered reflections we might expect from a "typical tourist." Indeed the speaker is well-traveled and has seen plenty, but his is a search that takes this book beyond the anecdote and into the tradition of the poet hungry for geography, landscape and motion, pushing his imagination into an active dialogue with his intellect. Literature has long recognized the need for poets to displace themselves from the familiar surroundings in order to sharpen the insights of empathy and vision. Hightower has undertaken such journeys, charting paths that guide us, his readers, into startling revelations. But what really impresses me is the way this poet is so attuned to the exceptional qualities of the ordinary, that even the Texas ranch, like Rome, can provide an important window into the world at large. Hightower never falters into sermon or presumption, but keeps his language honest and true to the stories he has to tell.