Meditations on Rising and Falling
"A truly exceptional volume of poems. Wry, wise, and powerful, this work offers highly nuanced sketches and shrewdly observed scenes of profound human reckoning. With a child's awe and an adult's caution - and compassionate care - the speaker in these calm and elegantly philosophical poems wins our trust time and time again. The measured, lyric ease of these poems is matched only by their superb tonal complexity and masterful, celebratory ease." - David St. John, Brittingham Prize judge "While Philip Pardi's poems are lithe and imaginative, the real pleasure here is his willingness to dwell on an idea or feeling, to examine the familiar in a manner that is both gentle and startling." - Bob Hicok, author of Animal"