In The Pain Trader, James Fowler creates timeless narratives around the people, history, and landmarks of rural America. Divided into “Hereabouts” (the Ozark region) and “Thereabouts” (a broader area), his 48 poems find meaning and beauty in the seemingly ordinary—from cheap roadside attractions ("IQ Zoo") to an impromptu chivaree. (“Ozark Yarn”), to local resentment of “Mr. [Woodrow] Wilson’s war” (“Over Here”), to a set of “Mountain Airs” documenting a long and mostly uneventful marriage.
The Pain Trader opens with pioneers settling in the Ozarks, aware of the Indian cultures and the (Louisiana) Purchase. Fowler’s quiet, often wry, voice guides readers through Ozark perspectives on the Civil War, the Sultana disaster (“Aftermath”), saltpeter mining (“Below, Above”), and sundowner laws (“Sundown”). Eureka Springs gets an esp
