Silverchest: Poems
Since 1991, Phillips has published, on average, one collection of poetry every other year, from the enigmatic metaphysics of The Rest of Love (2004) to the refractive couplings of Double Shadow (2011). Less concerned with lofty philosophy than previous books, as interested in eros as ever, the poems Phillips gathers in Silverchest are composed in spare blocks of speech, hushed breath, soft expressions of quietude. He seems focused on stripping the work down to singular principles, as in “Surrounded As We Are, Unlit, Unshadowed,” in which broken syntax mimics the heavy exhalations of a momentary pause: “you are still, black stars / black / scars, crossing a field that you’ve / crossed before.” Even what remains of Phillips’ impulse to push a thing into its shadow, into its opposite, is transmuted. “After the Afterlife” ends with the lines: “Any shadows / that break break randomly across these waters.” Most of the poems end with this kind of sensory impression, more sigh than exclamation, like a barn door open to an empty pasture, or wet leaves after rain. --Diego Báez--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.