Originally from Albuquerque, New Mexico, Caleb Puckett has lived in an array of towns and cities in Oklahoma and Arizona. Puckett now lives in Ottawa, Kansas, where he works as an academic librarian. His poems, stories and articles have appeared in many small and large press publications, including Diode, Mad Hatters’ Review, Otoliths, and Scribner’s American Writers series. He has also published several chapbooks and three book-length collections with presses both here and abroad. In addition to writing, Puckett serves as an editor for literary and academic journals.

Books

• Fate Lines/ Desire Lines (Mammoth Publications, 2014)
  
• Caleb Puckett & Friends: In Mixed Company (mgv2>publishing, 2013)
  
• Market Street Exit (Otoliths, 2011)
  
• Tales from the Hinterland(Otoliths, 2008)
  
• Desertions (Plan B Press, 2007)
  

Editorial Work

• Nimrod International Review, associate poetry editor
  
• Futures Trading: Anthology One, Anthology Two, Anthology Three; founding editor

Cameo

A pink shell carved in low relief; a sea change of self noosed to a deep plunge of neck; a swan-like profile of Leda mixed up in Neptune’s net; a star’s surprise appearance in a tragicomedy with hecklers in the wings; yet it’s nothing so much as a minute likeness of idealism auctioned off for futurity; a delicate conceit.

Resurrection

Lab-articulated Passenger Pigeons grow animate,
learn the lasting code of surrogate birds,
assimilate to survive a new world.
So much furtive futuring
with the wrong eyes
blinking belief
about history’s patent veracity.
What culture remains from this culturing?
Salvation’s negated by the damnation of seeming.
Passenger Pigeons pass clouds in body, dissolve in being.

Cozy Mystery

Christie comes. She comes with a mysterious smile. She comes at me with a smile and a carving knife. She comes at me with a knife. She comes at me with a knife in her trembling fist. She comes at me with her fist and cries. She closes in on me with a smile, raising a knife to my face. She closes in on me with a cry, leaving me few options. I eye the blade and open my mouth for a taste. I cry, “Baby, you’re a bloody culinary genius!” The flavor she has produced from such commonplace ingredients is quite striking to say the least. Our guests will be completely distracted by the fine cuts on the platter. None of them will ever question our cozy little party’s true purpose. Nothing, I assure her, will ever seem to be the matter. As I turn to stir the broth, I feel a sudden prick in the ribs. “Cozy?” she asks with a new smile no less mysterious than the last.

• Biography from Mammoth Publications
  
• "Cowboy Poetry" in Tryst
  
• "Karma, Oklahoma" in This Land Press
  
• "Listening to Hank Williams," Kansas Time & Place (150 Kansas Poems)
  
• Poems in Moria
  
• Review of Caleb Puckett & Friends: In Mixed Company in Galatea Ressurects

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