Inquest [Paperback]

"A blend of the low-rent sociology of Raymond Carver with the quirky imagination of Richard Brautigan."–Billy Collins

Michael McGriff’s book-length poem Inquest is an oblique ode to Pablo Neruda’s posthumous masterpiece The Book of Questions. Each sentence is rendered as an unanswerable query, be that a consideration of poverty, aesthetics, place, Ezra Pound’s Chinese translations, the absurdity of everyday life, the exhumed body of Pablo Neruda, or the sanctity of common objects. Deeply surreal and humane, this collection centers unknowing and wonder as twin forces central to self-articulation, social witnessing, and survival.

Michael McGriff is the author of six poetry collections,Inquest,Angel Sharpening its Beak,Eternal Sentences,Early Hour,Home Burial, andDismantling the Hills. His other books include the linked story collectionOur Secret Life in the Movies(co-authored with J.M. Tyree); an edition of David Wevill’s essential writing,To Build My Shadow a Fire; and a translation of Tomas Tranströmer’sThe Sorrow Gondola. He co-directs the Creative Writing Program at the University of Idaho.

“What better way to enter a zone of negative capability, a zone John Keats believed was necessary to the creation of art, than to enter a self-imposed state of unknowing and remain there by asking questions that have no answers? In the marvel-filled collection of poems that is Inquest, each poem, paying homage to Pablo Neruda’sBook of Questions, is made up entirely of questions—questions that move in and out of surrealism, social witnessing, and lyric self-expression. Michael McGriff, an accomplished and dare I say brilliant poet, has written a book of poems that begin and end in negative capability, along the way delighting the reader with the stunning and relentlelCY