Imperfect thirst

the long version

Galway Kinnell's twelfth collection of poems, Imperfect Thirst, is powerful and thrilling, beautifully crafted and astonishingly candid. In it, Kinnell approaches elemental subjects with a remarkable balance of good nature and holy dread. It includes re-visions of moments of childhood and youth; reflections on the relationship between humans and the other creatures; poems bearing on music, language, sex, mortality; five poems based on the form of the Persian ghazal; love poems; and a tender evocation of a daughter taking care of her old father. Five longer poems close the book: a meditation on the lasting reverberations of childhood trauma; a lively ode to excrement; a disquisition on flies which weaves together the observations of thirteen other poets; a looking back at the past and a child's looking forward; and an elegy for a beloved sister. Imperfect Thirst is a bold, exact, passionate book from a poet at the height of his powers.