H.L. Hix's newest poetry book, Chromatic, bears as its epigraph the
philosopher Baruch de Spinoza's assertion that "desire is the very
nature or essence of every single individual." The three sequences of
poems in Chromatic test that claim. Each has a borrowed title:
"Remarks on Color" from Ludwig Wittgenstein, "Eighteen Maniacs" from
Duke Ellington, and "The Well-Tempered Clavier" from J.S. Bach.
Exploiting those predecessors, the poems in Chromatic explore the full
range of effects caused by human desire, from ecstasy to suffering.
Chromatic was a National Book Award fi nalist for poetry in 2006.