Great Regulars: Perhaps the most personal,

and most moving, of the poems in this collection is the book-length "Mural" (pp. 99-145), which Darwish wrote about his hospitalization for surgery in 1998. It is a monologue with himself, Death, and the nurse who cares for him. Ironic, poignant and often humorous, "Mural" captures his signature blending of hard reality with dream-like images. "I was alone in whiteness,/alone . . ./Nothing hurts me at Resurrection's door."

from Powells: Review-A-Day: A Change of Worlds

~~~~~~~~~~~

Critics refer frequently to [Michael] McClure's "organic" poetics, of writing with the whole body as opposed to with only the mind. But I don't see it. What I see is a writer who's been influenced by European avant-garde poetry and by the poetics of traditional cultures in such a way as to put music to the page and to forge a relationship with his readers. If poetry, at its best, is something that fundamentally alters the reader and leaves him or her living in the world in a different way, then McClure is a true poet.

from Powells: Review-A-Day: To the Beat of a Different Poet

~~~~~~~~~~~