A Thief of Strings

"These poems make you want to read them over and over, you want so much to understand their magic, their vastness. We suddenly have a master. God bless his courage, his knowledge, his playfulness, his stubbornness, his loving attention. God pity his grief."-Gerald Stern What is a nation when it ignores history? What is a man when he forgets his life? This acclaimed poet's tenth collection chronicles our seeming, and apocalyptic, liberation from conscience-and even consciousness itself. These masterful poems, written in Donald Revell's increasingly more enraptured and oracular style, delineate the consequences of such disregard in a manner both spiritually generous and urgent. From "Election Year": . . . You asked for my autobiography. Imagine the greeny clicking sound Of hummingbirds in a dry wood, And there you'd have it. Other birds Pour over the walls now. I'd never suspected: every day, Although the nation is done for, I find new flowers. Poet, translator, and critic Donald Revell is the author of nine previous collections of poetry, most recently Pennyweight Windows: New and Selected Poems. Winner of numerous awards, fellowships, and prizes, he is currently a professor of English at the University of Utah and poetry editor of the Colorado Review.