Twice Told

Twice Told is a grave collection of accounts and encounters in which premonitions, visions, whispers, and coincidences circle a dire, unidentified plot. Disturbed and disturbing, over-heard and beheld, Pagel's “perpetual disclosures” chillingly foretell the past and regret the future. How terrifying! How thrilling! Sung in the hushed tones of secret, instinctual, and incremental rhythms, Pagel's beautiful “catastrophic underground echoes” have the urgent intensity of a steady descent down a spiral staircase in a dream. Moreover, Twice Told has “a frantic animal soul” that plays dead to survive its own death. When you put down this book of poems you will fear your own shadow. — Robyn Schiff