Prose was always meant for colloquy, risk, and intimacy. With these rich
and conversant prose poems, Marvin Bell and Christopher Merrill return
spoken language to sport--sometimes competitive, but often cooperative,
exploratory, even humanely probative. What is a friend? Bell and Merrill
demonstrate friendship is drawn from imagination.--Stephen Kuusisto,
author of Letters to Borges
The best conversationalists intuit and respond to unspoken questions and
interstitial meanings, sidelong concerns and secret subjects. They also
know how to listen to another's story and hear the line or inflection
that calls forth their own tale in a way that enlarges, well,
everything. Marvin Bell and Christopher Merrill's stunning epistolary
paragraphs illustrate the inner workings of just such an intimate,
agile, and sustained conversation. This collaborative, high wire act
offers up profound truths in exactly the way the most exciting poems
take shape--by leaps of imagination and complete trust in the power of
association to bring up riches, songs, and wisdom from the depths.--Lia
Purpura
After the Fact is a lively and imaginative conversation between two
legendary poets. Marvin Bell, writing from Iowa City and Port Townsend,
and Christopher Merrill, writing from around the world, give us an
intimate look into collaboration at its best.
Christopher Merrill's recent books include Boat and Necessities.
He is the director of the International Writing Program at the
University of Iowa.
Marvin Bell's works include collaborations with poet William
Stafford and volumes of an original poetic form, most recently collected
in Vertigo: The Living Dead Man Poems.
