New Books In Poetry

Kevin Prufer is a rare poet who manages to layer narratives and weave metrical variations seamlessly into his work, all while placing it on the page in an organic and “effortless” way. This is especially notable when we come to understand the process by which his poems are born; the disparate connections and glorious jumps, as though into blackness, that he makes in each piece. Churches (Four Way Books, 2014) is a collection that dazzles with sound and macabre landscapes where anything is possible. The title of a poem that we did not feature (and listeners must seek out) is “The Idea of the Thing and Not the Thing Itself” is, in my opinion, an excellent representation of the entire collection. It is as though ideas manifest into characters and anecdotes just to explain themselves better, then turn back into the intangible and unreachable, leaving only a hint of themselves in the verse. Prufer is a poet that you can trust with your mind. He may bring you to the reaches of subjective rea