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The Goose Liver Anthology seamlessly weaves together two distinct literary traditions: the English in Mother Goose and the American in Spoon River Anthology. It is a cynical look at doom with flashes of love and spunk. Many characters are doomed by mere chance, others by the fate of human nature. Age and vanity doom them, and loneliness, sex, and desire drive them mad with tragic results. In short, besides being just plain fun, it also has a lot to say about fate.

The book was nominated for the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association’s 2025 Elgin Awards.

Ken Anderson was nominated for the 2025 Georgia Writers Association’s Georgia Author of the Year award for a full-length poetry collection.

Sample Poems

JERRY HALL

Jerry Hall, he was so small,
A rat could eat him, hat and all.

When I was a little boy,
I was a very little boy— in fact, an elf,
and Mother called me Hob. When I was a devil, she set me
on a shelf
with a jar
of dill. When I was an angel, she fed me cake
with a spot
of breakfast tea. She treasured me
as only a mother could, a delicate Elzevir edition
of her Great Expectations.

Sent
to draw a quart
of beer, I started
down the cellar steps
toward what the rodents guarded, trusting
I’d run their gauntlet
of teeth.

I said, “The barrel’s dry,” just
as I lied
when I told myself
that marriage would swathe the stinging cut
of my youth. I thought
a Little Person wouldn’t balk
at the playhouse
of reduced circumstances,
the playful game called Man and Wife.

She bought me children’s wear— a pair
of jumpers, smalls. She liked
to dress me up and strip me
like a doll. But soon, she threw me
into her cash box —up
to my chin, yes, up
to my chin
on the rim— and ordered me
to jingle her coins
or she’d feed my arms
and legs, she swore, like sticks
of cheese, to rats.

Mother rests
in a muddy grave. My wife ran off
with Jack. And quietly, in the hush
at dawn, all dolled up (yes, a hat
and all) like the doll
I was, I stepped
down steps, steep step
by step, to the dark, infested cellar.

There was no Easy Street
in this country town
for the minikins
who were shy
as sheep
or the ones
who were somehow odd.

~~

THE NOSELESS MAID

“The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird
And snapped off her nose.”

Sing a Song of Sixpence

I was hanging up sheets
which flapped
like great white birds
when a blackbird clipped my snoot
and flew away
with my twang
forever.

“My nose!” I swooned. I had traded it
for a spade
on a playing card.

The gay cook had cooked up a cute dessert,
two dozen clever blackbirds baked
in a pie, except that they all went daft
in the stove
and, when he sliced them open, scattered
like pearls.

I did what one does
for nosebleed— the ice pack, the heels
in the air. But now, without my wedge, I can’t pry
in my neighbors’ affairs
nor rest my specs, which fall
in my mouth. I was never much
of a spy. There’s no justice
in it.

When I go
to blow, I poke myself
in the eye, and my bugle plays a silent tune
whenever I should snuffle, sneeze, or snore.

Once I pushed the smells about
like brats, but now I can’t sort garlic
from rose— be it sub nosa. Oh,
to sniff some hot, buttered oats
or my old man’s frowzy coat!

And never
to nuzzle my apple-cheeked John
nor even face him
sans my face, let alone, put on airs.

Yes, now I have
to paddle about
with two black holes
for the pretty prow
which used
to ply the breeze.

And all
for a smart pie!

What Are People Saying?

In The Goose Liver Anthology, Ken Anderson pulls back the curtain and gives us a peek into the trials and travails suffered by some of the most famous characters from our childhood lexicon. Anderson’s ability to capture the true cadence of fairy tale voices produces some of the most satisfying verse to be found anywhere.

With intuitive wisdom, he explores the worlds of Mother Goose and The Brothers Grimm, where all, apparently, is not as it seems. The Goose Liver Anthology is a brilliantly written and intriguingly crafted poetry collection: at once poignant, insightful, and brimming with Anderson’s signature humor.

Raymond L. Atkins, They All Rest in the Boneyard Now, The Front Porch Prophet, Camp Redemption

~~

In The Goose Liver Anthology, poet Ken Anderson combines his sense of whimsy and lyrical gifts to offer a hip slant on some classic favorites – a spider’s eye view of Miss Muffet and company – a collection that is by equal measures playful, sly, tart, and somewhat naughty: a veritable pepper pot stew of clever ramblings to warm and nurture one’s poetic soul.

Willie Wilson, Up Mountain One Time & Glassbottom Days

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