The poems in The Broken Face explore a sacramental, imaginative vision
within contexts of crime, perception, memory and love. In this
collection, Russell Thornton returns to the vital themes of intimacy and
family, loss, fear and hope, bringing to each poem the essential quality
of a myth or incantation. Reverent and revealing, within those familiar
relationships he ushers in a connection with something transcendent: "A
man has come floundering late in the night / to stand alone at the shore
of a sleeping infant's face."
The poems capture life at the periphery, whether describing homelessness
or incarceration, or even the universal experiences of aging and
mortality, love and fear of love, all of which bring the speaker into a
detached yet energized state of watching and waiting: "the door that was
my grandfather into our passing lives / will arrive at a house where
each of us is his own door / that opens on our first selves, fundamental
together."
With intense lyricism, Thornton displays a mastery of craft so complete
as to be nearly invisible. While stunningly beautiful, his imagery is
also in such complete service to the deeper emotional resonance of each
poem that it feels inevitable, making the collection deeply moving.
