Author Interview with Lesley Battler author of Endangered Hydrocarbons

49th Shelf Most Anticipated Spring 2015 Poetry Selection

Fracking—tar-sand runoff—dirty oil extraction. This is the language of our oil-addicted 21st-century society: incredibly invasive, blatant in its purpose, and richly embedded in mythological and archetypal symbolism. The ultimate goal of the industry: To core the underworld.

Endangered Hydrocarbons, Lesley Battler’s first full-length collection of poetry, shows that the language of hydrocarbon extraction, with its blend of sexual imagery, archetype, science, pseudoscience, and the purely speculative, can be as addictive as the resource it pursues.