A powerful, inventive collection from one of America's most respected poets
There's
a trembling inside the both of us,
there's a trembling, inside us both.
The territory of Reconnaissance is one where morals threaten to become merely "what the light falls through," "suffering [seems] in fact for nothing," and "all we do is maybe all we can do." In the face of this, Carl Phillips, reconsidering and unraveling what we think we know, maps out the contours of a world in revision, where truth lies captured at one moment and at the next goes free, transformed. These are poems of searing beauty, lit by hope and shadowed by it, from a poet whose work "reinstates the possibility of finding meaning in a world that is forever ready to revoke the sources of meaning in our lives" (Jonathan Farmer, Slate).
"[Phillips's] poems are driven by the desire to transform truth into beauty. Yet they are scrupulous in their acknowledgement that the truth has, more often than not, been left behind . . . He makes extraordinary beauty true by acknowledging that the beauty we long for is often unreal."
Jonathan Farmer, Slate
"Carl Phillips creates smooth currents of language that begin in one place, subtly shift direction and then shift again . . . The sounds and rhythms of these poems are gorgeous, and Phillips, whose awards include the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, isn't afraid to ask unsettling questions."
