Distributed for Eastern Washington University Press
The Talking Book of July
This first book of poems by an author whose work has appeared in a variety of journals and literary magazines is imbued with a stillness that is persistent in its significance. In this carefully crafted world a branch, an eggsac, a voice carried across a mown field, encompass all the longing, loss and connection inextricable from the human experience. Each piece is infused with language and images powerful in their lucidity and stunning in their simplicity. With an unrelentingly clear and distinctive voice, Rick Alley delivers keen observations about the world and the individuals in it, which arrive to the reader like a series of unfolding gifts.
Table of Contents
Cleaning • Exemplary Life Above Ground • The Storm, Leaving • The Museum of Contemporary Envy • With Gratitude, in Depth & Sweet • The Mayor of Harmony • Choir Boy • Eggsac • Passenger • I Knew the Dove I Saw on the Roof • On Seeing a Friend from a Flattering Distance • In Spring Air, • The Lake Outside Her Window • The Pond Gets Less Lonely • At Last the Sun • The Talking Book of July • Snapshot • Influenza, • Morning is Busy • Spring was Planning a Quiet Comeback • Airfield • Up Early and Out • Four Poems Instead of an Elegy • The Man from Baltimore • Rock Garden • The Man Who Hugs the Ground • The Best and Final Chapter • Bewildered Again on the Same Street, • Field Guide to Autumn • One-Act • Some Unattainable Facts • Current Events • Primary Detail • The Orphans • Rainy Lake • They are Always Trying • At Home in a Lasting Body • Virginia Woolf, • I Don’t Think the New Gears • Her Featureless Day • Dissecting Uncle Sorrow • There’s the Story of the Girl • The Canary Man & You • For Mary Jane, Open and Looking Forward • The Radiator • My Shoes Disappear • The Identities of the Dead • Ground • The Growing Days • Taking Leave • The Robins Dim, Coming Back a Little Less • Bed Poem