The Valley of Cranes

Poetry. His seventh full-length volume of poetry, Phillip Foss's THE VALLEY OF CRANES excavates a wordscape--at once archaic and prophetic, imagined and lived--originating in the poet's homeground of New Mexico's Chaco Canyon. Following on his two previous books from Singing Horse Press--THE IDEATION (2004) and IMPERFECT POVERTY (2006)--Foss's new suite of poems takes us "where the chatter / of thought becomes chromatic / becomes visual dissonance." These poems are a synaesthetic feast for eye, ear, and mind. "A meditational tone steeped in quirk and particularity marks THE VALLEY OF CRANES. Anything could be something else in this book that abounds in unpredictable declaration. Sensuous and astringent both, Phillip Foss's poems offer pause, gleam, glint, edification--repeated yield of angular prospect and purchase"--Nathaniel Mackey.