The Oregon Trail is the Oregon Trail
If you didn't play the iconic computer game The Oregon Trail in your youth the charm of this book will be lost on you. Each poem uses the imagery from the classic game to describe various feelings and situations, some to better effect than others. Loved ones perish of dysentery while green oxen look on by the riverbank. Because of this unifying theme there is a repetition throughout the book, which almost makes it read like one long heartbroken fever dream. While I wasn't always moved by these poems I was consistently impressed with the raw, and almost desperate, feeling they could invoke. If you're a Gen Xer, especially a man who has loved and lost, then give this collection a read.
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