Winner of the 1995 National Poetry Series, judged and selected by Heather McHugh.
Through myth, dream, and sensual detail, the poems in this remarkable first collection portray a hectic world plagued by a desire for psychic coherence. The book begins and ends in extremity: the opening poem, "Infernal," evokes the searing realm of an actual and metaphoric Miami, while the final poem, "New Heaven, New Earth," alludes to seeking a path through dense woods amid a blinding, obliterating blizzard. In their longing to define a set of terms for spiritual survival, these essentially lyric poems merge an evocation of contemporary consciousness with the oldest conventions of cry and song.