When the Saints

John Taggart's WHEN THE SAINTS is a major long poem dedicated to the memory of his friend, the sculptor Bradford Graves (1939-1998). Taggart, whose writing was long ago recognized by such peers as Robert Duncan and George Oppen, brings to the work a musical precision. As in music, Taggart allows his work to circle through repeated phrases, but he always returns to the eloquence extracted from single, simple, hard-won statements.