Finalist: High Plains Book Awards

It is both head-scratching and flattering to be selected as a finalist for the second year in a row in the High Plains Book Awards. Yes, you can go home again, but not the way you came.

I am beyond grateful to the High Plains Book Awards for selecting my book of poems, “Goodbye Yellowstone Road”, as a finalist in the 2023 awards - to be held this Saturday night (Oct. 7) in Billings.

I’m also honored by Louisa Frank’s kind review of my book - reprinted below.

Review

Goodbye Yellowstone Road by Tom Vandel / Tiny Road Books

Reviewed by Louisa Frank

Are you someone for whom poetry never resonated? Who felt it was abstruse and disconnected? Well, this reviewer counted herself among your number (with the exception of Emily Dickinson!) until an eventful afternoon at This House of Books in Billings when then Poet Laureate Lowell Jaeger gave a reading. His narrative poems were a delightful revelation!

In Tom Vandel’s debut book of poems and vignettes Goodbye Yellowstone Road, storytelling abounds. This is familiar territory for Vandel, who was a finalist for the 2022 Short Stories Award with The Broken World. He excels at drawing the reader into each poem’s scenario, building momentum from poem to poem.

Inspired by music, Vandel organized his book as a double album divided into four “Sides,” a “Bonus Track,” and “Liner Notes” of acknowledgments. He explores broad themes of family, friendship, chance encounters, and lessons learned throughout the book, but the Bonus Track, appropriately called “Nostalgia,” is really his overall subject. As the poem says, “Nostalgia means been there, done that, wanna do it again.”

Five of the 55 poems are about his daughter, an obviously feisty favorite who roundly berated him at a young age when he joked about her Halloween candy. He never made that mistake again. We are treated to vignettes throughout about his patient, card-playing mom and his reticent “except-on-certain-back-roads” dad.

A 1981 rafting adventure on the turbulent Stillwater with friends, including local writer Ed Kemmick, narrowly avoids disaster. The conclusion:

“We got a break that day and all I

can say is – stay in control,

don’t lose your oars.

Be wary of still water.”

Chance encounters are a fascinating aspect of this book – a “kangaroo” sighting near Fort Belknap, a tale of saxophone playing told by the Missouri River near Townsend, and a crow that knows 40 words and enjoys swearing at the dog. According to Vandel’s take on lessons learned, you should keep what you’re given, especially when it’s “The perfect jacket for an imperfect world”; don’t go to sleep with beads braided into your beard; and don’t forget to put brake fluid into your car!

Readers will enjoy Vandel’s sense of humor and ever-present wordplay. If you are one who believes puns are the lowest form of humor, this book might not be for you, but, sprinkled throughout, they consistently induced chuckles in this reader. In the end, though, it is the narrative of each vignette that drives this book, so if narrative poems call to you, grab a copy of Goodbye Yellowstone Road.

Louisa Frank is a retired educator who has lived in Billings since 2012.