Mike Chasar is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of English at the University of Iowa, where he is writing about the intersections of poetry and popular culture. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Antioch Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Cortland Review, 2River, etc., and his dissertation, “Everyday Reading: U.S. Poetry and Popular Culture 1880-1945,” recently received first place in the national “Distinguished Dissertation” award competition sponsored by the Council of Graduate Schools and University Microfilms International. “Seeing Things” and “Retho” are two of the “wonky ballads” in an unpublished book manuscript titled Crocodile Wrestling.