Laterals

Description

Sports and sports fandom are a window into the self in Justin Carter’s second collection. Like its namesake football move, Laterals is a book where the idea of forward movement is possible, but always comes at a price. From dwelling on the fracturing of a familial past to the struggles—and joys—of parenthood, Carter uses sports as a way of understanding the world around him and of interrogating the self. From playing pickup basketball at dawn to sneaking onto the floor at a monster truck rally, Laterals is a collection where beauty and reflection can be found anywhere.

Praise for Laterals

“In his astonishing second collection, Justin Carter moves laterally, as in a last-second kickoff return, from the intimate to the ideological and from the trivial to the transcendent.  In the context of a new marriage and young fatherhood, and with a critical eye reminiscent of Adorno, Carter documents the profound role of American sports as a form of intergenerational cultural inheritance.  These poems marvel equally at the awe and absurdity of sport, from the majesty of a combined no-hitter to a Pop-Tarts mascot rising from its toaster in messianic glory.  As it shuttles from “Pac-12 After Dark” to Dale Earnhardt Jr. at Daytona, Laterals elegizes and extols an American working class sold out in the depredations of de-industrialization.  Evoking the economic lament of Richard Hugo, combined with the pop lavishness of Quan Barry, Carter documents beautifully—and through its most massified cultural form, athletics—the distinct grandeur and gaudiness of the American experiment.  Are we not entertained?”

– Christopher Kempf, author of Late in the Empire of Men and What Though the Field Be Lost

“Everything inside your brain / is on replay. Over & over, / you watch the past.” The promise and horror of this cycle is at the heart of Justin Carter’s Laterals. Sports are built on repetition and remembrance. Every match is a reminder of a previous match and a preview of a match to come. When the Vikings imagined heaven, they saw never-ending seasons of battle. When the Greeks imagined hell, they saw never-ending seasons of reaching for goals that would always be one step away. In Laterals, Carter is both poet and play-by-play announcer as he takes readers through the world of sports to show how the predictable seasons of sports collide with the unpredictable seasons that come with family, fatherhood, loss, and societal change.”

– Jason McCall, author of Dear Hero, and Razed by TV Sets

“Justin Carter’s amazing new poetry collection, Laterals, speaks to the sacrosanct nature of being a fan. His distilled love of the game bleeds into a whole life, including a baby, a wife, and a job. The game’s endless loop is both backdrop and the beating heart of this author’s world. Carter explores the religious, familial, and folk metaphors encapsulated in sport, and drops some incredible one-liners along the way. Readers will first “age like / Baker Mayfield interceptions” and then “wake up & Christian Laettner is sinking shots out in the driveway.” At the end of it, he makes it clear that “some things are only for us,” and I believe him as I surface into the bright buzz of the crowd’s effervescent cheer.”

– Sandra Marchetti, author of DIORAMA and Aisle 228

“Laterals by Justin Carter gives us more than “simulacrum of what it means to be a fan”—it puts us in the heart of one, pulsing vibrantly as it moves lyrically from poem to poem like a wave through a stadium, reminding us sports are, of course, about the athletes and the teams they play for, but also the food and the fans and the friends, the crowds, the signed hats, the grain of televisions and the corners of the dive bars they’re shoved into, the unthinkable pain of loss and the vibrating mania of championship—and all of the held breaths and “strange little coincidences” in-between.”

– Kimberly Ann Southwick, author of Orchid Alpha

“Evocative and lyrical, these poems will stay with you. You don’t have to be a basketball fan to feel moved. Carter can summon your deepest emotions with a single line.”

– Mirin Fader, New York Times Bestselling author of Giannis and Dream

Justin Carter is the author of Brazos (Belle Point Press, 2024) and the editor of Some Words. Originally from the Texas Gulf Coast, Justin now lives in Iowa with his wife and son. Laterals is his second full-length collection.