margaret_adams's review
This was my first time reading Stephen Dunn. I was lucky enough to be able to read most of this volume over the course of a few days of sunny lunch breaks, my first ones after a long, particularly rainy Seattle winter. The first poem in this collection, "Solving the Puzzle," set the tone for the whole collection: I read it five or six times and still couldn't decide if it was hopeful or heartbreaking. Both, I decided. Most of the poems that followed embraced that same duality.
lichenbitten's review
"Maybe from the beginning
the issue was how to live
in a world so extravagant
it had a sky,
in bodies so breakable
we had to pray."
from "Ars Poetica"
the issue was how to live
in a world so extravagant
it had a sky,
in bodies so breakable
we had to pray."
from "Ars Poetica"
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