Too Much Explanation Can Ruin a Man

"In these gracefully formal poems, Robert Crawford has captured so much about human experience that the first words that come to mind to describe them have to be rejected as too limiting. They are ‘regional poems’ in the best sense; they are ‘love poems,’ and include some of the best examples of that timeless genre that I’ve read in years; they are ‘nature poems’ that convey the landscape through careful observation, as when the poet notes ‘Odd oak leaves left to crab across the snow.’ They include insightful character studies; taut narratives and revealing dialogues; elegies that create a kind of unheard music; dark ruminations on the gaps between desire and fulfillment; barbed humor; witty fantasies; delicately erotic, melancholy evocations of moments always felt to be passing. ‘Stranger by a Window, Waiting for a Flight,’ takes the reader through a life lived—and dismissed—in an instant of thought that has an unnerving resemblance to reality. I am eager for a! second book from Robert Crawford."—Rhina P. Espaillat