Blackbird and Wolf Poems

I don't want words to sever me from reality. I don't want to need them. I want nothing to reveal feeling but feeling--as in freedom, or the knowledge of peace in a realm beyond, or the sound of water poured in a bowl. --from "Gravity and Center" In his sixth collection of verse, Henri Cole deepens his excavations and examinations of autobiography and memory. These poems--often hovering within the realm of the sonnet--combine a delight in the senses with the rueful, the elegiac, the harrowing. Central here is the human need for love, the highest function of our species. Whether writing about solitude or unsanctioned desire, animals or flowers, the dissolution of his mother's body or war, Cole maintains a style that is neither confessional nor abstract, and he is always opposing disappointment and difficult truths with innocence and wonder. Henri Colewas born in Fukuoka, Japan, and was raised in Virginia. The recipient of many awards, including the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for Middle Earth, he is the author of six other books of poetry.Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Poetry Winner of the Ambassador Book Award Winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize I don't want words to sever me from reality. I don't want to need them. I want nothing to reveal feeling but feeling--as in freedom, or the knowledge of peace in a realm beyond, or the sound of water poured in a bowl. --from "Gravity and Center" In his sixth collection of verse, Henri Cole deepens his excavations and examinations of autobiography and memory. These poems--often hovering within the realm of the sonnet--combine a delight in the senses with the rueful, the elegiac, the harrowing. Central here is the human need for love, the highest function of our species. Whether writing about solitude or unsanctioned desire, animals or flowers, the dissolution of his mother's body or war, Cole maintains a style that is neither confessional nor abstract, and he is always opposing disappointment and difficult truths with innocence and wonder. Contents I: BIRTHDAY Sycamores Mimosa Sensitiva Gulls Oil & Steel Ambulance Chenin Blanc Maple Leaves Forever Twilight Migraine To Sleep The Erasers The Tree Cutters Birthday Self-portrait with Hornets II: GRAVITY AND CENTER Gravity and Center American Kestrel Loons Quarry Homosexuality Haircut Toxicology Poppies Bowl of Lilacs Shaving My Weed Self-portrait with Red Eyes Embers Wet Apples III: DUNE Beach Walk Eating the Peach Dead Wren To the Forty-third President Hymn The Lost Bee Persimmon Tree Bees Mirror Dune"‘I, upright on hind legs, alternately sexed / (even that seemed banal), didn't want to go home.' So ends ‘Maple Leaves Forever,' one of the free sonnets that make up the bulk of Henri Cole's new book. The banality with which the speaker greets his transformation is an appropriate stance for a speaker in this book to take, since the book's pleasure appear in tones so casual as to make them seem obvious . . . An absolute delight

Henri Cole was born in Fukuoka, Japan, and was raised in Virginia. The recipient of many awards, he is the author, most recently, of Middle Earth (FSG, 2003), a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and The Visible Man (FSG, 1998).

“[Cole writes] in a voice that buzzes with emotion . . . His best book to date.� —Publishers Weekly