Accessible and wry, at times comic, and often mournful, Daniel
Anderson's poetry is relentlessly attentive to the splendors of the
natural world. But the poems collected here--previously published in
such leading literary journals as Poetry, The Kenyon Review, The
Southern Review, The Yale Review, New England Review, and Southwest
Review--are not relegated simply to the realm of pastoral meditation.
They give voice to the sorrowful and sometimes unfortunate things we say
and think. They chronicle, with both precision and care, the many ways
in which jubilation and lament frequently reverse themselves. Above all
else, each poem crystallizes in its wake a freshly minted moment, one
that articulates an experience that reaches beyond the poet's own time
and place.
Sunflowers drenched in early evening sun; icy blue, explosive waves
along the rocky shores of Maine; September cotton "like strange
anachronistic snow" in Tennessee--Anderson forges these images into deep
ruminations on love, shame, delight, loss, and estrangement.