He is quick-blooded and good, and these are very fine stories indeed. The magical, insistent claims of his ancestors and native country haunt Agha Shahid Ali in The Half-Inch Himalayas , Ali's first book of poetry. An Indian Muslim emigre living in the US, Ali transforms his past into the stuff of myth and legend while also coming to terms with with the loneliness of his urban American present. Steve Orlen Orlen is a wonderful poet and one of the best practitioners of free verse writing today. The sounds of his poems bang and glide.
Most fine poetry strikes the mind and heart.
This is true of Orlen as well, but his poems also strike the ear. They feel good in the mouth. On the Edge is an unflinchingly intimate portrayal of a man troubled by his past, the stress of a passionate love relationship with his young wife, and the pressures of his morally ambiguous job. Through Poverman's protagonist Frank August, we are exposed to a searingly candid picture of a legal investigator and the criminal justice system itself.