Keep Watching the Sky

This collection actually consists of three serial poems, extended raps and riffs which Joseph Torra weaves together in terms of themes and images. Torra is a formally innovative writer, whose work Martha Collins calls "quirky, yet always emotionally grounded." Especially resonant is "Paintings," the middle of these serial poems, chock full of lines that speak to the fascination and isolation of modern life: "Abandonment whirls through a room in cold circles. The phone next to a stack of unopened mail has yet to ring." This is good work about these times, well worth your attention.