The laughter of the sphinx

the long version

"Michael Palmer's new book--a collection in two parts, "The Laughter of the Sphinx" and "Still"--contains 52 poems.The title poem begins "The laughter of the Sphinx / caused my eyes to bleed" and brings home to us the ruin we are making of our world, even as Palmer revels in its incredible beauty. Such central tensions in The Laughter of the Sphinx--between beauty and loss, love and death, motion and rest, knowledge and ignorance--glow in Palmer's lyrical play of light and entirely hypnotize the reader"--Back cover.