The Beforelife

Whispered and etched, this book, this swarm of white space razored by words, this pill of dry and dead truth and black stars hanging in the far parts of the mind, which quietly explode (like an echo of an explosion) when you least expect them to, is one of the most urgent books of poetry I've read in several years. The occasional primordial club bashing the back of one's skull, the self-deprecating humor ("you will find me . . . . at the motherless sky.com"), the deeply earned authority to say with complete conviction "Why isn't Jesus's face ever described?/ Because/ in heaven unlike earth/ it doesn't make a difference/ what one looks like/ I suppose" This is a courageous and startling book of poems, a new chapter, in fact, in American Poetry.