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Dancing, with Mirrors
Dancing, with Mirrors is George Amabile's `lyrical retrospective', a thoughtful fragmentation and re-arrangement of his personal history. These eleven `cantos' tumble into and over each other in a rush of passion, memory, devastation, and quiet moments that promise renewal; here, Amabile's talent for sounding the complex depths of everyday life shines like a beacon.
- GenresPoetry
192 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2011
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June 7, 2026
George Amabile's "Dancing, with Mirrors" is described as a "lyrical retrospective," and that phrase captures something essential about this collection's structure and spirit. But it is also, perhaps, a deliberate understatement. What Amabile has produced is a thoughtful fragmentation and re-arrangement of personal history, eleven cantos that tumble into and over each other in a rush of passion, memory, devastation, and quiet moments that promise renewal. The result is a work that feels simultaneously intimate and expansive, deeply personal yet somehow universal.
The mirror of the title is crucial. Amabile is not offering straightforward autobiography, nor is he attempting to construct a seamless narrative of a life lived. Instead, he holds up mirrors, multiple, angled, sometimes cracked, to catch reflections from unexpected directions. The "dancing" suggests movement, energy, the impossibility of standing still while trying to see oneself clearly. The image also evokes the way memory works: we are always dancing with our pasts, always in motion relative to the reflections we try to catch.
The eleven cantos vary in length, tone, and focus, but they cohere as a unified work. Amabile moves between decades, between geographies, between moments of profound loss and moments of quiet, almost domestic renewal. His talent for sounding the complex depths of everyday life shines throughout. A remembered kitchen, a winter walk, the particular quality of light in a room, these become doorways into emotional territories that more obviously "poetic" subjects might miss entirely.
What distinguishes Amabile's work from other retrospective collections is its refusal of sentimentality. These poems are not nostalgic. They are too honest, too aware of devastation, to pretend that the past was simply better or easier. But neither are they despairing. The quiet moments that promise renewal are earned by the acknowledgment of loss that precedes them. Amabile understands that renewal is not the erasure of what came before but its transformation, a dancing with mirrors that changes both the dancer and the reflected image.
For readers familiar with Amabile's previous work, this collection offers a synthesis and a culmination. For new readers, it offers an accessible entry point into a distinguished career. And for anyone interested in contemporary poetry that engages seriously with memory, aging, and the persistent possibility of beauty in the midst of brokenness, "Dancing, with Mirrors" is a genuine gift.
Highly recommended for lovers of lyric poetry, retrospective collections, and the quiet, persistent art of making meaning from the fragments of a life.
The mirror of the title is crucial. Amabile is not offering straightforward autobiography, nor is he attempting to construct a seamless narrative of a life lived. Instead, he holds up mirrors, multiple, angled, sometimes cracked, to catch reflections from unexpected directions. The "dancing" suggests movement, energy, the impossibility of standing still while trying to see oneself clearly. The image also evokes the way memory works: we are always dancing with our pasts, always in motion relative to the reflections we try to catch.
The eleven cantos vary in length, tone, and focus, but they cohere as a unified work. Amabile moves between decades, between geographies, between moments of profound loss and moments of quiet, almost domestic renewal. His talent for sounding the complex depths of everyday life shines throughout. A remembered kitchen, a winter walk, the particular quality of light in a room, these become doorways into emotional territories that more obviously "poetic" subjects might miss entirely.
What distinguishes Amabile's work from other retrospective collections is its refusal of sentimentality. These poems are not nostalgic. They are too honest, too aware of devastation, to pretend that the past was simply better or easier. But neither are they despairing. The quiet moments that promise renewal are earned by the acknowledgment of loss that precedes them. Amabile understands that renewal is not the erasure of what came before but its transformation, a dancing with mirrors that changes both the dancer and the reflected image.
For readers familiar with Amabile's previous work, this collection offers a synthesis and a culmination. For new readers, it offers an accessible entry point into a distinguished career. And for anyone interested in contemporary poetry that engages seriously with memory, aging, and the persistent possibility of beauty in the midst of brokenness, "Dancing, with Mirrors" is a genuine gift.
Highly recommended for lovers of lyric poetry, retrospective collections, and the quiet, persistent art of making meaning from the fragments of a life.
Displaying 1 of 1 review