Selected Poems

This generous selection from Daniel Halpern's seven previous volumes represents more than two decades of work. Finding a poetry in the dailiness of human experience, Halpern reaches into the least-known corners of the heart, with an ambition to transmute the occasions of life -- friendship, loss, isolation, love, and death -- into the melody of consciousness. Notable for their poise, lyric intensity, formal aptitude, and uncanny evocations of place and states of mind, these poems yield something special in their apparent simplicity.

From the restless youthful investigations of his first volume of poems, Traveling on Credit, to the more seasoned, penetrating vision of Tango and Foreign Neon, Halpern's inventions are graced by what Derek Walcott has praised as "the intimacy of a man talking honestly with himself." This collection illustrates the evolution of an authentic American voice whose power to delight and instruct is as undeniable as its mandate to disturb. A magnificent achievement.