Half-Dreaming: poems

The poems in Half-Dreaming Douglas Nordfors beautiful new book fly like birds around twin flagpoles--the abstract vs. the concrete the self as stable vs. the self as always in the process of creating itself what is knowable about the world vs. what is and always will be mystery. Ruminative breathtaking in their associative leaps these poems see and feel with such burning intensity that they draw us spellbound into their fire. Over many years Nordfors has quietly built a body of work that generously rewards sustained attention. --Steve Bellin-Oka author of Instructions for Seeing a Ghost In his latest book of poetry Half-Dreaming Douglas Nordfors asks the big questions of what constitutes intimacy growth and being and answers them with a fleet-footed blend of philosophy meditation politics personal and relational observations. The book toggles between sections titled Abstract and Concrete but the dexterous interplay feels almost too rich for a binary characterization. He faces hard truths without flinching but circles back to the pale happiness he describes in Deliberate Ecstasy. Every poem brings a new revelation youll find no artifice or filler here. From a stunning sequence of love poems comes A Dream where he writes: It is not your beauty./ It is not your mind as large/ as the stains of another existence... It is that you are here / shedding the hard center of the world. The split tongues Nordfors writes of sing taking the reader on a journey that feels hopeful edifying and earned as if they too are shedding for a moment the hard center of the world. It is a deft and elegant book and for those who seek refuge in poetry a welcome reprieve from the political noise. A must-read. --Sarah Estes author of Hive Bone and Field Work