The Right to Depart

At the core of this collection, which travels the globe and the neighborhood, is a deep knowledge and respect for both the physical world and the world of the heart. The poems use language, beautifully crafted and finely tuned, to create a space for them to come together.Compassion and craftsmanship come together in that beautiful way that keeps us all crawling back to poetry to learn the truth. Lisa Starr, Rhode Island Poet Laureate The work is clear, spare and moves rhythmically through recognizable grief and celebrates the sweetness of love returned, while acknowledging the real losses of this time. The unanswerable questions become the contradictions we face in reading his work, and Faber’s poems guide us to new arrivals of meaning, both ironically and iconically altered, with “everything in its place” anew. Beatrix Gates, poet, teacher, author of several poetry collections, including Ten Minutes There’s a whimsical, deep sweetness in Lou Faber’s work, mingled with the toughness of mind required to take a long look at the human predicament. Absences both personal and collective haunt the poems as their speaker mourns the multinational victims of violent injustice. Next you’ll find a lyric voice set dizzily free from the laws of Newtonian physics, or Buddha and Hillel stepping out to enjoy a convivial nosh. It’s the honesty with which Faber depicts a self fully entangled in the fabric of the world that renders convincing these flickers of canny celebration. Jan Clausen, poet, novelist and teacher, author of several books, inclucing From a Glass House. In this substantial collection of poems, I have come to admire Louis Faber’s range, wit, and sensibilities. I’ve had the pleasure of publishing Louis Faber’s poetry but the real pleasure comes in reading these poems and the unexpected ways of knowing that they make possible. These poems are motivated not by the desire to dazzle the reader so much as to simply get us to see again what we know must exist. James Elkins, editor, Legal Studies Forum