In Cove, the compulsive intensity with which James Brasfield seeks to
capture a fleeting moment's imagery, "to choose a song sown / for the
moment," imbues his poems with a sense of urgency and movement. By
exploring the translation of the sensory world into art, Brasfield faces
the passage of time and the transitory nature of experience, thought,
and memory. The poems find "angles of vision" to rescue a present
instant in its essential fluidity, to go deep enough, without
distraction, into the moment and reveal touchstones of being. Throughout
Cove, Brasfield embraces the enduring effort to create an experience
of language that is rich, lasting, and true, as life speeds into and
through the future.