Oval

Poetry. "David Till has produced in OVAL a collection that encompasses the full circle of experience.... The 58 poems take a wide range of forms and lengths, including everything from the expressionistic, fragmentary ABOUT TROUT (`...Go stardust / One goes off hot inside / yr dream hand'), to the joyous occasional piece TWO POEMS FOR THEIR WEDDING: (`I could say: dogwood are like moonlight, / or like wedding gowns in the dark church; / but to me, / they are cold banks of snow in the mountains...' The disparate quality of the poems is offset by Till's consistently gentle, grounded sensibility....")--Maria Browning, THE NASHVILLE SCENE. Whether Till is imagining the bitter heart of a bruised apple ("a quarter note alone / at the lake's edge"), or writing of the loneliness of time's passing ("home / where everything you see shines with absence / where you weep for your father's eyes, the starry / nights of love, your son's blond hair"), he presents the life he has seen and lived in a plain-spoken vocabulary and with an unaffected voice. This collection sings with a quiet enthusiasm for the natural world. David Till is emeritus professor of English at Austin Peay State University, where he has taught poetry and literature since 1971.