Great Regulars: "Tarnished Angel" moves systematically

from desire to degeneracy, from degeneracy to clarity. In its trajectory and its insight, the poem recalls the best work of Horace, the Roman poet of the Augustan Age, who wrote "if you wish to weep, you must first mourn yourself." That's the kind of logical notion that epitomizes a sensibility of the poised and even-keeled, the very sort of mind and art [D.A.] Powell has mastered.

Tarnished Angel

from David Biespiel: The Oregonian: Poetry: Poems of clarity, order--and hipster gravitas

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