From the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Ruth Lilly Prize
The poems in Carl Dennis's new collection Another Reason assume that
our efforts to reason with ourselves and with others about what matters
to us are necessary to escape the purely private point of view, to
provide the houses we live in with doors and windows. These poems enact
a drama of attempted persuasion, as the poet confers with himself, with
intimates, and with strangers, if only in the hope that by defining
differences more precisely one may be drawn into a genuine dialogue. As
the poet asserts and questions his own authority, encountering a wide
range of competing claims from other voices, we find ourselves included
in a conversation that deepens our notion of the human community.