Calenture
Calentureis a book about compulsion, that strong kind of yearning often countered by duty. As the waves segment the sea, so Kent Shaw's lines read as at once kept and then utterly free. Faith, desire, myth, or allegiance- what is the current that carries us? 'Who is the swimmer who doesn t feel the silk/ tying his wrists when he pulls himself deeper/ into the lake's thicker folds.' --Sally Keith<br /><br />Beneath so many of the poems of Kent Shaw'sCalenture,there s an undertow of devotion that the poems at once resist and gradually give shape to. Against skepticism and apathy, Shaw pitches arguments for something approaching faith and fervor- the resulting poems surprise at every turn. --Carl Phillips<br /><br />Here are prayers unprayed yet answered in advance by oceanic lights and peonies. Only in the poems of Reverdy do I find cadences as reticent and then suddenly voluptuous as Kent Shaw's here inCalenture.This is a book that will remain vivid for a very long time. --Donald RevellBeneath so many of the poems of Kent Shaw'sCalenture,there s an undertow of devotion that the poems at once resist and gradually give shape to. Against skepticism and apathy, Shaw pitches arguments for something approaching faith and fervor- the resulting poems surprise at every turn. --Carl PhillipsCalentureis a book about compulsion, that strong kind of yearning often countered by duty. As the waves segment the sea, so Kent Shaw's lines read as at once kept and then utterly free. Faith, desire, myth, or allegiance- what is the current that carries us? 'Who is the swimmer who doesn t feel the silk/ tying his wrists when he pulls himself deeper/ into the lake's thicker folds.' --Sally Keith