The Engrafted Word: Poems

The graftings of flesh upon flesh, of history upon time and memory, of the New World on the Old, of language upon silence, of faith upon doubt: these are the graftings that form this third book of poems by Guggenhein Fellow and Rome Prize winner Karl Kirchwey. Whether he is writing of the intimate moment or the painfully personal, he reaches across time to link us to our past and to the larger universe of humankind. Kirchwey graces us with poetics of a high order even as he weaves the threads that tie this collection into a stunningly integrated whole. These are indeed poems that reward rereading.