Kirjahaku

Birkelbach writes of the Texas landscape and its people with conversational ease, making his vivid descriptions shimmer through each poem. He balances the ordinary and the phenomenal, the factual and the suppositional, the temporal and the eternal in poems remarkable for their depth of insight. As Billy Bob Hill writes in his introduction to the volume, ""Birkelbach can disguise a mosaic of word music in plain sight hidden in conversational English.

Karla K. Morton's photographs are as sharp-edged as some of the tree branches and animal bones they depict. They are carefully composed and at the same time luminous. Her country buildings convey a touching nostalgia. And many of her landscapes capture the elegance and nobility of the natural world. Each of Alan Birkelbach's poems takes its cue from a Morton picture, stays true to the subject, then quickly-magically-moves into its own terrain, a region where image turns into memory and meditation. This combination of photograph-and-poem is highly satisfying. The two art forms are a perfect fit.

This is the most complete selection of work by 2005 Texas State Poet Laureate Alan Birkelbach ever put in one volume. It brings together selections that represent his more recognizable pieces, work that has only been available in journals, work that has only been available in books that are out of print or unavailable, plus a generous selection of new work.