Poetry. Christopher Sawyer- Lauçanno's new book of poetry compresses experience and emotion into what seems at times an exclamation point of pain and yearning. It is, by turns, troubling and challenging, tough-minded and compassionate, earth-bound and learned. These poems are about the passing of time, 'the collision between what was and what is.' They are concerned with human limitation and aspiration, focusing on 'the how not to be any longer.' These poems are rooted the world he writes about, and they soar above in breathless leaps."—Michael Pearson