Body & Glass [Hardcover]

Body & Glassextends Koenekes experimentations inErtruriawith a tightly woven set of more compact poems that brighten and sharpen the lyrics usual corners. The anonymous forms of folk song and epitaph, parable and textual fragment, arrange to sketch the selves, living and dead, who might say them. These are poems of an improvised interiority, shared between the poet and reader but broad enough for multitudes.

The naturalness of Koeneke's essayistic explorations and his adept weaving of disparate sources make this an engaging, thoughtful, and consistently surprising collection. —Publishers Weekly

How refreshing; culturally grounded poems as if culture mattered. —Barbara Hoffert,Library Journal

Here is a preternatural social sensibility that remains poignant even as it confronts what today passes for the sentimental; here is an elegant figural technique that never disappoints. —Judith Goldman,Drunken Boat

'A star arriving firmly / at the center of its cluster' is Rodney Koeneke’s Body & Glass. There is something very singing and also staid about these poems. I mean they have both a freshness and the mark of an experienced hand behind them. I hesitate to call it a 'maturity' because it has a jouissance I don't associate with that word. These poems continue to yield fruit on multiple readings: 'furzed glebe' . . .  'prefer your lineaments / to any rotting / thing this world adores.' They feel nutritious to me somehow, nutrient-dense, coming out of great care, great grief, great toil (for all their sprezzatura): 'antiphons' slurring / surmising the psalm.'
—Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Poetry Foundation

his armored team

Through the ribbed hall I move continually
with my armored team, my

                              lƒ3