Lawrence Poet Danny Caine's Poetry of Consumer Culture

KCUR's Anne Kniggendorf spends time with Lawrence, Kansas-based poet (and proprietor of The Raven Bookstore) Danny Caine in advance of his reading at the Eighth Street Taproom next week to celebrate his debut collection, Continental Breakfast. "Danny Caine is in an awkward position," she begins. From there: 

On the one hand, as owner of The Raven Bookstore, he really loves all the independent shops that define downtown Lawrence. On the other hand, those big box stores and chains that threaten local businesses like his feel an awful lot like home.

So, he wrote some poems to try to sort it all out. That became "Continental Breakfast," his first collection.

"The theme I keep returning to is just the idea of forming an identity in a world that's controlled by brands and capitalism. Whether that's falling in love or traveling or forming your religious practice, it's in the shadow of all these brand names," Caine says.

The poet grew up in a Jewish family in Cleveland, or, more precisely, Solon, Ohio.

"That's another thing. When you're from the suburbs you always say the name of the biggest city nearby," he says.

The collection rocks from the achingly backward-looking "Jaycie," which stares down two supermarket employees' young love, to the eye-rollingly hysterical "The Ideal Budweiser Customer Watches a Budweiser Commercial."

Read more at KCUR.