Askew

Dan Harder's narrative sequence of poems, about the joys of solitude and the powerful pull of other people, is set in the South of France. But this is no sunny, sentimental sojourn in Provence. It's an exploration of what the author aptly calls the "seductive confusion of connections." Told in multiple voices that both interrupt and cunningly inform each other, the poems have a dramatic presence and musical sense of counterpoint. The reader is drawn more and more deeply into the speaker's heart and mind, and into the faraway village where his funny, poignant adventure plays out.