Conditions of Grace: New and Selected Poems

by Mark E. Sanders

Mark Sanders’ Conditions of New and Selected Poems brings together the best work from a thirty-year career. These selections include powerful lyrics and narratives, metaphorical and fearless observations of the landscapes of region and heart, and a music that is at both subtle and alluring.
"Mark Sanders writes, he says, in “plain speech for a plain people.” But the complexities of his social and familial involvements, his awareness of self and others, mean that the lives rendered here are anything but plain. They are ornery, funny, bedeviled, passionate, private, and performative—I mean, the people and Sanders’ poems. This poet is of the same important tribe as Ted Kooser and Jo McDougall, Dave Etter and Jim Barnes, in tune with a type of Midwestern and democratic rhetoric—'plain' but dramatic, public but precise."—David Baker, editor of Kenyon Review
"Mark Sanders is a keen observer, a careful translator of experience and an archivist of the actual. He can 'turn sharp on a country thought' or channel Wallace Stevens, and his Conditions of Grace displays and utters a vital world of hawks, horses and humane humans either wrestling with sorrow or 'downing shots of Comfort.' His poems are deft and significant, and I’m betting most readers who find their way to this book will not be eager to find their way out. Instead, they’ll want to join Sanders as, 'We stand our furious ground.'"—R. T. Smith, editor of Shenandoah.

Genres: Poetry

228 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2011

Reviews

[Gerry LaFemina · Rating 4 out of 5]

As when reading most New and Selected Poems, there was a time in this book when I felt "I've seen this before." The horse heavy poems near the end of the book started to blur together in ways that I think did a disservice to the individual poems as a whole. Sanders is a strong poet, and there were many poems in this collection that made me re-read them, lines that I wrote down in my poetry journal, bits of imagery and--more importantly--bits of wisdom that linger. A more critical editorial eye that said, "what's the best of these" would have given us a powerhouse collection; as it stands, the book is strong and worth the attention fine poetry demands.

[Sean Prentiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful book of poetry that seems to follow the author, Mark Sanders, through his life. Maybe these poems are based in fiction, but it seems to follow his journey from youth through adulthood in wonderful, meandering ways. We see the narrator as a child losing his sister, as a bar going teen, in an early failing married, and onward through the travels of life. These narrative poems are beautiful and stark like the landscape they deal with. A great "new and selected" edition. A wonderful read.

[Terri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sanders’s poems are accessible and practical, rooted in everyday people and life, yet they resonate to a deeper level. Looking at the world through this poet’s eyes widens the reader’s own perspective.