Of Some Sky

One of the most nuanced and historically sensitive documentarian poets currently working in the U.S., Joseph Harrington turns to ecological matters in his latest volume. Braiding insights from post-structural theory with perceptions of the natural world, adding a strand of self-deprecating wit devoted to the agon and illusions of the writing process itself, OF SOME SKY is a compelling critique of...of the death of the earth and the self-involvement and inadequacy of the individual subject. It is also exceptionally beautiful elegiac poetry.--Maria Damon

Nature poetry has tended either toward celebration of transcendent truths or toward nostalgia and loss (there goes the forest). But I cannot think of a poet other than Joseph Harrington whose nature poems come with such a mordant sense of humor. He knows, with bitter wisdom, that 'you must destroy something / to feel nostalgia for it.' Unlike many eco-poets, his call to direct action is skeptical, self-knowing. There is joy to be found in his plays on words: 'I dare you to mine the gap / between uranium and geranium.' But it's a long fall from the Romantics. This is an honest book, if not a hopeful one.--Susan M. Schultz

What to do when the sky is actually falling? Why not ignore Chicken Little and celebrate Earth Day Lucky for us, the poems in Joseph Harrington's OF SOME SKY have other plans. Harrington takes us on a wild cruise through what we are left with: 'machines that run, all the time, feeding themselves.' In a poetic style of vernacular with a touch of Joy Williams, the tone reveals how each bird represents each of us, 'not spring- / ing just falling / off the / edge of / one's life.' Welcome to the last epoch. Our hands are soaking in it.--Dennis Etzel Jr.