The Drunken Driver Has the Right of Way: Poems

From the fabulously creative filmmaker who wrote and produced movies such as Fargo, Barton Fink, and Blood Simple, this is a provocative, revealing, and often hilarious collection of poems that offers insight intoan artist who has always pushed the boundaries of his craft.

In his screenplays and short stories, Ethan Coen surprises and delights us with a rich brew of ideas, observations, and perceptions. In hisfirst collection of poems he does much the same. The range of his poems is remarkable-funny, ribald, provocative, sometimes raw, and often touching and profound.

In these poems Coen writes ofhis childhood, his hopes and dreams, his disappointments, his career in Hollywood, his physically demanding love affair with Mamie Eisenhower, and his decade-long battle with amphetamines that produced some of thelengthier poems in the collection. You will chuckle, nodding with recognition as you turn the pages, perhaps even stopping occasionally to read a poem. Handsomely and durably bound between hard covers, this is a book thatwill stand up to most readers' attempts to destroy it.

From the Hardcover edition.

In his screenplays and short stories, Ethan Coen surprises and delights us with a rich brew of ideas, observations, and perceptions. In his first collection of poems he does much the same. The range of his poems is remarkable–funny, ribald, provocative, sometimes raw, and often touching and profound.

In these poems Coen writes of his childhood, his hopes and dreams, his disappointments, his career in Hollywood, his physically demanding love affair with Mamie Eisenhower, and his decade-long battle with amphetamines that produced some of the lengthier poems in the collection. You will chuckle, nodding with recognition as you turn the pages, perhaps even stopping occasionally to read a poem.

When not writing plays, poetry, or short stories, ETHAN COEN makes movies with his brother, Joel Coen. After thirteen films, the Coen brothers have one of the most beloved and critically acclaimed bodies of work in the history of cinema.

With his brother, Joel, Ethan Coen has produced, written, and directed films such as Raising Arizona, Miller’s Crossing, The Hudsucker Proxy, The Big Lebowski, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? Their latest film is The Man Who Wasn’t There. Ethan’s first book, a collection of short stories, is Gates of Eden.

From the Hardcover edition.

Mr. Sands — To O — The drunken driver has the right of way — Tale of the Yukon — On Davey Jones — For what it's worth — Anthropology — Old age — Horns — After Bukowski — Such sweet sorrow — C. Darwin — Three places — Agent elegy — The hopping poem — The fable of C. Edgar Botts — I love you deeply, darling — My dream and what I make of it — Back when the world was fresh and new — Limericks — More limericks: sons of Abraham — What, then, is the point? Clean limericks — Reunion — A naughty verse — Is this thing on? — Never-ending remembrance — The twa duncies — Johnny Pigass — On being nye — Hereafter — Should beasts be met — The little flower girl — Self-portrait — I am born — A man can dream — Lament — Something for everyone — The road to heaven — Bloomingdales, or, ontology — Churchyard — Dog, debonair — Retirement plan — If I may — The mental garden — Toppled in the street — The wrestler: a fragment — I am finished — Solution — To a dear lady — April is tornado season in Minnesota — O Yale man — Reminding me of someone whose bed does not, and son does, spring out — You want spooky — To a young woman, mained by a reaper — I have a dream — Model — Riddle — The wise man — How long, how late — I dreamed I left my knapsack — I dreamt I saw St. Augustin