Substrate: Poems
"Powell has a gift for using a series of lists that magically add up to a sum far greater than their parts." --San Francisco Chronicle“Together these poems are a marvel. Powell’s subject is nothing less than how energy and power rise, decay, then reconstitute themselves in the human and natural worlds. To learn how thrilling, how magisterial this can be, see ‘Temperament,’ see ‘Ghost Dance Witch Hunt Blues.’ An exhilarating book.”—Frank Bidart, author ofDesirePraise for Jim Powell’s Previous Work“I find it difficult to overpraise the ease of this writing, which in one act combines succinct physical presentation and explanation of it. Jim Powell not only understands the way in which opposites are necessary to one another, he achieves his knowledge in the poem, and se we grasp it as we read. In the meeting of opposites . . . he has tapped a subject matter that is endless ad important, and by the thoroughgoingness and the subtlety of his exploration shows he has the power to do almost anything.”—Thom Gunn