Trace: Poems

by Eric Pankey

Eric Pankey’s arresting ninth collection of poems, Trace , sits at the threshold between faith and doubt—between the visible and the invisible, the sayable and the ineffable, the physical and the metaphysical. In Trace , Pankey creates images of both stark beauty and stark truth. The skeleton of a burning home becomes a children’s drawing of a house. The waning moon wears a mask, sheds grit, disappears in “straw effigy.” And the departure of a loved one is compared to the retreat of a glacier—leaving behind an exposed and scarred speaker. As the collection progresses, it maps a journey into deep depression, confronting one man’s struggle to overcome that condition’s smothering weight and presence. With remarkable clarity and complexity, Trace also charts the poet’s attempt to be inspired, to breathe again, to give breath and life to words. Ever solemn, ever existential, Pankey’s poems find us at our most vulnerable, the moment when we as humans—believers and nonbelievers alike—must ultimately pause to question the uncertain fate of our souls.

Genres: Poetry

68 pages, Paperback

First published January 8, 2013

About the author

Eric Pankey is the author of eight previous collections of poetry, most recently The Pear as One Example: New and Selected Poems 1984-2008 and Reliquaries. He is the recipient of a Walt Whitman Award, a Library of Virginia Poetry Prize, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial, and the Ingram Merrill Foundation. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review, Field, Gettysburg Review, and Poetry Daily, as well as numerous anthologies including The Best American Poetry 2011 (edited by Kevin Young). He is currently Professor of English and Heritage Chair in Writing at George Mason University. He lives in Fairfax, Virginia.

Reviews

[Kaylee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was without a doubt, the best work of poetry I have ever read. I mean, the imagery, the emotions the poetry evokes in oneself, it is utterly beautiful.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...a somber affair whose tone radiates and oscillates between far points of fear, defiance, faith, and concession. There is joy, or perhaps more accurately, 'traces' of joy that mostly shine through in threads of implication—the deeper understanding and connection with the natural world that comes only with full immersion. One could imagine a time in the narrator’s life when a collection such as Trace might have been built more from Leaves of Grass than The Hollow Men, more Henry David Thoreau than Dante or Baudelaire."

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[Bill Glose · Rating 3 out of 5]

In his lyrical ninth collection of poems, Eric Pankey paints a portrait of a world in which tiny things—a bird loose in a house, a vacant lot, an otter playing in the current—raise questions about important, unknowable issues. Mostly, he asks (without answering) the great questions of faith and doubt while mulling over the potential of an afterlife. From “Sober Then Drunk Again,” he writes: “I prepare for death when I should prepare/ for tomorrow and the day after / and the day after that.” Solemn and substantial, Pankey’s words will leave readers musing long after each poem’s end.

[Daniel Klawitter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Objects and Mementos

In a room above, an unseen canary ceases its song;
Moisture condenses and clings, clouds

The glass of a stoppered antique bottle;
An onion, fallen behind the cupboard, sprouts.

Objects and mementos are not memory,
But vessels of, frames for.

To strike the noon hour,
The lightening rods flare all at once.

The shutters are nailed open.
The story, within, there to be read.

In the wine tannins, I taste the sun.
I see the thermals by way of the up-spiraling hawk.

[C. Varn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strong collection

Image strong and at times desolate, Pankey continues to develop his muscular natural imaginary. He continues to be one of my favorite poets.