Tarantula hawk wasps are beautiful bugs: They have iridescent blue-black bodies with yellow wings; large, doe-like eyes; and delicate frames with a seemingly magnetic connection between thorax and stinger. The hawks also boast the most painful sting in the world—scientists recommend that if stung, people should lie on the ground and scream for three minutes, the duration of the pain.
The hawks, parasites that paralyze tarantulas to feed to their young, are the subject of one of the poems in Welcome to Midland, a new book of poetry about a queer coming-of-age in West Texas oil country written by poet Logen Cure and published by Deep Vellum. The book includes odes to the flora, fauna, and history of Midland—such as coyotes and cacti, baby Jessica (a baby who fell into a well in the ’80s whose story was captured by national media), and a famous oil derrick. The first full-length poetry collection from Cure, a professor at Tarrant County College and an editor for Voicemail Poems, is a mature, thoughtful work.
