Description
Book SynopsisTaking cues from medieval sea charts—portulans—the poems in Jason Sommer’s collection bring a fresh variation to the ancient metaphor of life as a journey.
Trade Review"'There are no words / beneath the shape of things, ' Sommer concedes, but his poems almost make one believe that there could be. With the care and precision of a navigator trying to discern paths that won't simply circle back, he bypasses metaphors gone wrong, riding a syntax supple enough to hold the music of the 'the mind's buoyant gravities.' The many kinds of rhymes in this collection are invitations to listen closely to the layers of history and myth that hum beneath thinking. 'It's inner space he's after, ' and he takes us there."--Mary Szybist, author of Incarnadine "The beauty of Portulans comes not only from Sommer's formal gracefulness, but also from his matching that virtuosity with mortal stakes. Poems like 'Incident at the Mother's, ' 'Attention, ' and 'Billy's Facts of Life' reveal narrative skill and unsentimental depth of sympathy that little contemporary fiction can equal, while 'Multiverse' and 'In the Basement Is the Previous Culture' display Sommer's sheer capacity of imagination. Open to spontaneity while masterfully carved, these poems are alive to our moment, which they will outlast."--Peter Campion, author of One Summer Evening at the Falls
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Soul The Expedition The Most I Took Back from a Dream In the Basement Is the Previous Culture Satori Changing the Script Wakened to a Certain Knowledge of a Limited Kind Multiverse Incident at the Mother’s Four Photos and Brief Case Report from the Journal Surgery In the Moment before the Call Drops In Their Nature: A Trio of Neighbors in a Sidewalk Chat Children Wearing My Shoes He Thinks To Myself in the Coming Time Billy’s Facts of Life At the Friends of the Library Local Authors Event Lot’s Daughters The Old Art Apollo Takes the Trophy of Marsyas L. Receives Honorable Mention in Late Middle Age What Men Want Grudge Attention
