Huge Cloudy

by Bill Carty

In his debut collection Huge Cloudy, Bill Carty attends to the world, bringing thought to vision with a cartographer’s sense of scale, and a shipbuilder’s attention to detail. Alternating stretches of lyric narrative with longer serial poems, Huge Cloudy proceeds by a Ship of Theseus poetics. Like a series of field notes, the poems document change as the contemporary landscape is revised by big and small forces— the bank vault that becomes an open mic, the pond that becomes condos, the puddle of vomit to walk around. These poems attend to the ugliness of a world, of a history, or poetic lineage, with a magic map. Drawing as much from the neighborhoods of Seattle as from coastal environs, this is a collection that folds the map— a kind of bounding sphere— in on itself.

http://www.octopusbooks.net/books/hug...

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2019

Reviews

[Chelsea Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this—as in, I loved it while I read it, and I’ve continued to love it since I set it down.

[Nat · Rating 5 out of 5]

"All is Retained Which Has Not Been Surrendered"

The night was humid.
We stood by the burn pile
and did nothing. It felt like

the last thing we should do.
No corners out there, by the trees, but smoke
piled against some edge

of the sky. Light warped
in those particles. It was worth
another draft. We burned

rent checks and pink slips.
We gave final notice. It seemed like
the best thing to do with a forest.

[Greg Bem · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bill Carty's debut is a book of past times and moments of toppled perspective. From the aquatic to the sky, from the echoing tunnels of city life to the sprawl of insight in small town America, these are poems that remind us we are kept together by weirdness and exception. They find heart in the American grain and beautiful rupture in cultural harvest.

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vibrant type of curiosity. Pounds of clouds, an endless mention of blue. This is magic when magic is melancholic, dazed in the sunroom, where the screen door is full of rips and tears, willing to let anything enter.

[Amorak Huey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super good book. I read it to write a review; will post a link when / if it gets published.

[Blake Levario · Rating 5 out of 5]

good shit!

[Kate Gage · Rating 5 out of 5]

we read this book to our kids and they love it- also sometimes to adults- they also love it.

[Aaron · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Thus spoiled, / we ask for the rod." — from "Mutual Fish"