Surfaces

Michael Lesher's Surfaces is a celebration of what might be called the central paradox of poetry: that every attempt to plumb the depths of lived experience must begin, and end, in the impenetrable surface world of words printed on paper. Somehow, the shape of a collection of letters placed on a page, and the sounds they produce when pronounced, have to convey a sense of the most inward levels of experience. This would appear impossible, and the collection's introductory quotation from Ralph Waldo Emerson -- "Give me truths;/for I am weary of the surfaces, /and die of inanition" -- only underscores the difficulty. Yet the goal of these poems is precisely to find those "truths" not by fleeing the surface of poetry -- line, rhythm, diction, and so on -- but by embracing it. And in doing so, of course, to reveal beauty as well.

• | Author: Michael Lesher
• | Publisher: The High Window
• | Publication Date: Jun 17, 2019
• | Number of Pages: 86 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 191320104X
• | ISBN-13: 9781913201043