Middle Earth

Time was plunging forwardlike dolphins scissoring open water or like mefollowing Jenny''s flippers down to see the coral reefwhere the color of sand sea and sky mergedand it was as if that was all God wanted:not a wife a house or a positionbut a self like a needle pushing in a vein.-from Olympia. In his fifth collection of verse Henri Cole''s melodious lines are written in an open style that is both erotic and visionary. Few poets so thrillingly portray the physical world or man''s creaturely self or the cycling strain of desire and self-reproach. Few poets so movingly evoke the human quest of a man alone trying --to say something true that has body because it is proof of his existence.. . Middle Earth is a revelatory collection the finest work yet from an author of poems that are . . .marvels-unbuttoned riveting dramatic-burned into being-- (Tina Barr Boston Review).