I knew them, floating in the mist over the ocean, soaring down where the waves spoke of the sun, gold and restless and beyond the waves, too, to where he looked. In school, he said, pulling on the string which tugs at me still. In school they will tell you dragons do not exist. This long-awaited gathering of Michael Hogan's poems contains his most memorable and disturbing work. Hogan built his reputation among small presses and chapbook publishers, creating finely crafted poems full of demonic power and dark beauty.
Hogan is a poet who learned the hard way about the saving power of poetry.
Hogan understands what it takes to make us listen and he has never given up. For Hogan, to undertake the poem is to undertake the possibility of radical transformation. The humility and compassion of his poems warm me when others leave me chilled to the bone. He rewards the reader with intelligence and warmth and with a wide sweep of understanding. He has the true strength which a few poets, such as Wendell Berry and James Welsh, William Stafford and Gary Snyder, have found in simple words and deep clear images which reaffirm our place on this planet with other living, growing things.