The Appendectomy Grin

As a second-wave veteran of the form, Charles Rafferty has emerged as one of America’s greatest living prose poets. 

Compact in size, but massive in scope, these poems explore the death of self, country, and planet, while remaining grounded in humor and the miracles of everyday life. In a world that is changing faster than ever, The Appendectomy Grin is a deep breath, a meditation, a rhythmic tickle fight, a slightly off-kilter manual on how to remain present and lucid in a world that seems intent on destroying itself.

The result is an argument you cannot disbelieve by a poet leaving his unique scuff marks on the linoleum kitchen floor of the world. Does the executioner have a rationale for the order of our beheadings? Ask Charles Rafferty. The answer is in the book.

Praise for The Appendectomy Grin

“Prose poems?—technically, yes. But really these are a new kind of physics: compact poems that, by virtue of their savvy soulful synapse-sparking swift connections, are larger on the inside than they are on the surface. They comment on our world with witty insight, and yet are themselves an imaginative world of a higher order. If Alice had entered such a wonderland of sharp thought and true tidings, she’d have never tried to leave.” —Albert Goldbarth, two-time recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award

“In The Appendectomy Grin Charles Rafferty’s irrefutable voice meditates on ideas, nature, relationships, as well as things—how they start and the uncanny ways they are shaped in the end. These prose poems are full of hope even as they upend American culture. Often wry, and always surprising, Rafferty makes you reconsider everything you thought was true.” —Suzanne Frischkorn, author of Whipsaw

Excerpt from "The Smoke From California"

You can only see the fog in somebody else’s yard, and the horizon is most plentiful in the place it is farthest away. Wine gets better with age but only to a point, and a bottle is rarely opened at the moment of maximum pleasure. The smoke from California is improving my Connecticut sunset. From the back deck I can see my neighbor putting his yard to rights as the orange light keeps spreading in the oaks. I call inside for another glass of the cabernet. Meanwhile, the ivy on the side of our shed continues its ascent.

Publication Date: 11/11/2025
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-960145-80-2
© BOA Editions, Ltd. 2025