Developing a Photograph of God by Robert S. King is a wonderfully cohesive and morally serious examination of the topic he evokes in the poem When the Road Curves Back "to find out why I'm here." This collection engages the 'dark night of the soul' and the presumptions of optimism; that life has meaning as King says in the last poem "that my small telescope can pull both past/and future back to show me how far/the curious soul has traveled." With a maturity of vision and a language drenched in lyric, King leaves us with remarkable images such as "Serpents of rain/ puzzle of noise and clumsy dance." "the places/where regret nags, dreams freeze and hope crackles down in fire" and "Smell the feathers of the angels burning." These poems, intimate and agonized, swinging between the horns of hope and despair, shed illumination on the grave and haunting philosophical questions. Joan Colby, author of Joan Colby: Selected Poems and other collections"