Flares

by Christopher Merrill

The richly imagined fables, vignettes, and prose poems of Flares reveal the elementary strangeness of this world. Here is the improvised travel record of a poet haunted by history, who documents what he discovers in foreign lands with an exacting and hallucinatory eye. Composed in transit, on diplomatic missions to scores of countries, Flares will endure in the reader’s imagination as a series of signals in the night, illuminating the hidden corners of our time here on earth.

Genres: Poetry

102 pages, Paperback

Published May 11, 2021

Reviews

[Nina Shevchuk-Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Flares" is a collection of short prose poems that capture and distill Mr. Merrill’s radical welcome to dislocation, practiced over cultural missions to over fifty countries. Full review at https://bit.ly/32Sdm8o

[Alexa Doran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly a collection of breadth. Surprise, craft, and wisdom light absolutely ever poem. There is an odd way in which Merrill relies on "old women" to carry many of the narratives, but flares is an apt title if we interpret flares to mean moments of enlightenment.