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 feelingۥas in freedom,
or the knowledge of peace in a realm beyond,
or the sound of water poured in a bowl.

ۥfrom "Gravity and Center"

In his sixth collection of verse, Henri Cole deepens his excavations and examinations of autobiography and memory. These poemsۥoften hovering within the realm of the sonnetۥcombine 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.