Reviews

The Rest of Love by Carl Phillips

scrow1022's review against another edition

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4.0

Straining, trying to understand desire, trying to understand belief.

"a human need
to give to shapelessness
a form."

I feel I comprehend fragments only, yet the whole pulls on me, as all his later poetry does.

kennethwade's review

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I don’t know what it means, but it sure is pretty!

sabsey's review against another edition

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5.0

A new favourite for sure.

Earthstar,
seastar -
more dark than either - he mistakes me.

Lies beneath me.
Has arched already himself up in
such a way.

He is
- what? an instance of glory
outglorying the bearer of it?
Token when it conquers
that for which it stood?

Those who give without receipt,
without even the expectation of receipt -
I am not among them.

As if having spoken, and
now could watch the words find, spatter-like, his chest,
a brightness that
depends finally,
any shield,

- a wall across which, random, off of water, light
shifts,
reflected.

What if the will
were husk entirely
and the husk,
breakable,
were broken open, to
where the seeds are? what
then? what would the seeds
be?

A cathedral, falling.

One of those doves that, in the Greek original, the sufferer's bow brings down.

O him, beneath me.


My favourite poems from this collection included:

Custom
Tower Window
Trophy
The Rest of Love
Like Stitches Where the Moths Have Made an Opening
Late Apollo
The Way As Promised
North
Hymns and Fragments
If A Wilderness
Sunset with Severed Head of Orpheus
Pleasure
Here, On Earth
Anthem
Like Cuttings For A Wreath of Praise and Ransom
Fray

katieweiler's review

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4.0

Beautiful. Challenging, but extremely rewarding.
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