Errancy

The epigram that precedes this newest collection of poetry from Jorie Graham points the reader on her way--maybe: "Since in a net I seek to hold the wind." What desires does this connote? This collection by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Graham is indeed a treatise on desire. The distinct persona of each poem embodies some fevered aspect--sexual, political, spiritual--of desire, harking back to the title, Errancy, to suggest that the state of erring might well be our only path toward truth.

The voice is frantic. Poems start mid-sentence; thought interrupts itself, interjecting breathless re-routings and disclaimers. Graham's is a tattered voice, one seeking wholeness in the latter, terrifying part of our complicated century. Included are six guardian angel poems, more like rants against the constantly craving, delusional human mind. Graham's allusion-studded poetry is not to be hurried over but savored, studied like sacred text.