Cindy Skaggs

I am stunned by the images. I held back reading this until I "had time," like it was dessert to be savored. And indeed, it should be savored, but more like a favorite cup of tea that you sit down with day after day, not something to be doled out in penny-pinching fashion. It's marvelous, and I should have enjoyed it sooner.

There's something about the vivid line that draws me to any written work, and so I was immediately drawn in by the first poem, Today: "The air is unhinged, I believe, and full of jazz." Yet in Bad Fame, each poem leads to yet another perfect line:

"Your silhouette is sewn into the lace curtain," he writes in a later poem. Yes! What a visual, what a memory to store.

There are so many images see, and so many questions he posits. It's a beautiful collection of poems and I'm the richer for having it near me to savor.