Blackbird and Wolf

I don''t want words to sever me from reality.I don''t want to need them. I want nothingto reveal feeling but feeling—as in freedomor the knowledge of peace in a realm beyondor the sound of water poured in a bowl.—from Gravity and CenterIn his sixth collection of verse Henri Cole deepens his excavations and examinations of autobiography and memory. These poems—often hovering within the realm of the sonnet—combine a delight in the senses with the rueful the elegiac the harrowing. Central here is the human need for love the highest function of our species. Whether writing about solitude or unsanctioned desire animals or flowers the dissolution of his mother''s body or war Cole maintains a style that is neither confessional nor abstract and he is always opposing disappointment and difficult truths with innocence and wonder.