Answerlands

Answerlands is a teacher's rhapsody, written out of anguish at the state of schools, the pressures of being in them and hallucinations brought on by the prolonged collision of errant imagination and disciplined reality. It's an attempt to dream about how true contact in education might be possible, both intra- and interpersonally. Answerlands is the place children go in their minds when looking for a correct answer without really thinking. It is also a fairy-tale world of quest, resolution and dissolution, glimpsed in a teacher's dream. And it is nightmare country, disfigured by fear and systemic violence. Joe Minden’s second collection, Answerlands, explores the curiosity-destroying, harmful potential of school even as it celebrates the erring minds of teacher and student, which make encounter possible.