To See the Sound

Many of the poems in To See the Sound explore notions of perspective, the shifting ways we see the world, the interplay of our ideals and senses as we negotiate our lives--and our deaths. Many also wrestle with constructions of ethnic and national identity, the speakers as heritage tourists, their own identities becoming increasingly intangible and remote. The collection is an example of postmodern formalism, in which historical forms like the villanelle and sonnet are simultaneously revered and deconstructed. Here, conservatism is not the driver of the formalism. Instead, the engine seems to be Degher's awareness of poetry's historical nexus to song, his commitment to maintaining aural and oral foundations, to keeping music in the poem.