Gaze

by Christopher Howell

FINALIST FOR THE RILKE PRIZE Christopher Howell’s haunted and haunting Gaze is a collection of counterpoints, swinging between moments of delicate connection and striking brutality. Howell explores how our interior and exterior lives are entangled, the past living on inside us as we live in the physical world around us, and he reminds us how loss releases us into the present—how in the process of living, “everybody pays.” Gaze is divided into three sections, focusing successively on the objective world, the world of the inner life, and finally on the “other world” of the imagination and alternate reality. The author speaks through his own voice as well as the voices of other characters, ghosts, and creatures, coming together to question and explore our perception of the world. Shifting between lyric and narrative, these poems proceed incrementally and with humility, offering a bewitching and deeply felt wisdom.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 3, 2012

About the author

Christopher Howell is the author of seven previous books of poetry, most recently Just Waking. He has received numerous awards for his writing, including two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, the Helen Bullis Prize, the Washington State Governor's Award, and fellowships from the Artist Trust and the Oregon Arts Commission. His work has three times been awarded the Pushcart Prize. He is professor of English and creative writing at Eastern Washington University and senior editor at Eastern Washington University Press. He lives in Spokane.

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Reviews

[KJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were seven crows inside her
gibbering and flapping, emitting
the occasional squawk
Sometimes she hopped around
because of this.
Come down, we said. Or
keep still. We can help you to realize
the longed for objective world;
We said much the same daily
while the waters rose and dark wings
discovered her shoulder blades.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it as normally poetry frustrates me. Perhaps I've FINALLY matured... though I doubt it. I liked about 3/4 of the poems. The other quarter felt a bit forced but mostly because I had no idea what the hell the poem was about. I always assumed someone who writes poems to be deep as a well (think of Aimee Mann's Satellite). Mouth breathing, Miller Lite drinking, trailer court residents tend to be deep as a puddle. Me I think of more as a river. Deep? Not so much but at least I'm always moving. So anyone who knows the poem above will note that I only have the parts I like. The rest I read and thought, "Nope. Don't get it. Next." This is my poetry reading process.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an intricate collections of poems. I read it and reread it again shortly after the initial reading. The poems are so layered and philosophical. Some of the lines are long in structure and thought. These poems got me thinking about life--and that is the aim of all great poetry. Howell is a master poet.

[Maya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would say that Chris Howell's poetry kicks ass, but that would be reductive of its merit. I even read some of these poems to my two-year-old daughter, and she requested a few over and over.

[Cody Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I'll keep saying, 'Receive me. Here are my silver/wings, in accordance with custom. Inside them/leaves have been falling all these years.'"