Middle Earth Poems [Paperback]

Time was plunging forward,
like dolphins scissoring open water or like me,
following Jenny's flippers down to see the coral reef,
where the color of sand, sea and sky merged,
and it was as if that was all God wanted:
not a wife, a house or a position,
but a self, like a needle, pushing in a vein.
-from Olympia

In his fifth collection of verse, Henri Cole's melodious lines are written in an open style that is both erotic and visionary. Few poets so thrillingly portray the physical world, or man's creaturely self, or the cycling strain of desire and self-reproach. Few poets so movingly evoke the human quest of a man alone, trying --to say something true that has body, because it is proof of his existence.. .Middle Earthis a revelatory collection, the finest work yet from an author of poems that are . . .marvels-unbuttoned, riveting, dramatic-burned into being-- (Tina Barr,Boston Review).

Middle Earthis Henri Cole's epiphany, his Whitmanesque sunrise. The modulation of these poems is extraordinary: they have a continuous undersong. 'It must give pleasure,' Wallace Stevens said. So oxymoronic is pleasure-pain, in Henri Cole, that we need to modify Stevens. But for now, poems like 'Icarus Breathing,' 'Original Face,' and 'Olympia' are the poems of our climate. Henri Cole has become a master poet, with few peers . . . A central poet of his generation. Harold Bloom

These are the poems of a conjurer, ceremonial and hypnotic . . . This collection marks the birth of Cole, a writer in his late 40s, as a poet for a wider audience. He displays his sense of humor and takes an unguilty pleasure in his visions. Dana Goodyear, Los Angeles Times

Cole is fated to be a deeply stylish poet, whatever technical tools he picks up or sets down . . . Readers will find in Cole's latest book,Middle Earth, a lyric reconsecration. Maureen N. MlC%