from

the long version

"These poems shine with the deep intelligence of gentleness and of a quiet, sustained concern. To read them is to be reminded of Robert Creeley's passionate advocacy of Hart Crane, a passion that reached crescendo in the exclamation (in a letter to Charles Olson) 'Dammit, isn't that gentle!' Here is a poet whose primary commitment is to attention, a poet who simultaneously understands and avows that attention is now and ever shall be the vivid prime of Love. I neither blush not hesitate to say that such avowal is literally angelic. This poet's 'Requiem' gently but unequvocally proposes points-of-view as an angelic imperative, gentle on its very face: 'Try / to remember the smell of sun through it all. It's / a rare courtship.' Love courts attention, and attention in return is both courted and empowered by love. The upshot? 'There was a beating / of silence then, until it was a new quiet...' It is the bright substance of this 'new quiet' I am happy to welcome and to acknowledge. It is surely the peaceable frontier of joy. -Donald Revell." -- from book jacket.