Walking Backwards

Collected poems from America’s searching and thoughtful philosopher-poet. . . There’s somethingComforting about rituals renewed even adolescents’ pipe dreams:They’ll find out soon enough and meanwhile find their placesIn the eternal scenery less auguries or cautionary talesThan parts of an unchanging whole as ripe for contemplationAs a planisphere or the clouds: the vexed destinies the shared lifeThe sempiternal spectacle of someone preaching to the choirWhile walking backwards in the moment on a warm spring afternoon.John Koethe’s poems―always dynamic and in process never static or complete―luxuriate in the questions that punctuate the most humdrum of routines rendering a robust portrait of an individual: complicated quotidian and resounding with truth. Gathering for the first time his impressive and award-winning body of work published between 1966 and 2016 Walking Backwards introduces this gifted poet to a new wider readership.