Ornithologies

by Joshua Poteat

Poetry. Poteat's ORNITHOLOGIES is the winner of the 2004 Anhinga Prize for Poetry. "With natural elegance and untiring invention, Joshua Poteat writes some of the most remarkable poetry you are ever likely to encounter. In storylines that move beyond the virtues of narrative into a region of wonder, combining violence and tenderness in an intimate voice capable of revelations as swift and sudden as the sear of lightning, his poems work themselves into the cloudy fabric of your imagination and reside there as unforgettable experiences."-Blackbird. "Poteat tells me things as if I were an audience but invisible. Or as if I were the moon. Yet something real passes between us, which is to say that the book is very good, that it leaves its mark. For here we are the audience of what is clearly an inner voice, flowing forward, throwing out its lovely perceptions, its lyrical lines of praise, its wonderment, its pursuit of moments and places, past and present, where mystery's veil for a moment spark

Genres: Poetry

108 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Kent · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really came to this book interested in liking it. I had seen Poteat's poems on web sites and in magazines, and I was interested in the ambition. And I have to admit I was eager to find someone who could successfully bring Larry Levis into the world of contemporary poetry. Unfortunately, what I found were poems that relied upon a fiction, and that fiction assumed the reader accepted the speaker's sincerity, but I wasn't willing to accept it. And so the poems often rang as ambition with voice, but unable to follow through with content.

[Elisabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

this wonderful collection by josh poteat completely swept me away. i took it on a weekend trip to providence, and i read poems on every plane, at every layover, aloud in the backyard on sheldon street. narrative and lyrical, and imbued with a sense of beauty in rust.
a must-read.

[Gary McDowell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked it. Never got as into it as I thought I might though. I eagerly anticipate Poteat's future work. Some absolutely killer poems here. I love their breadth.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

a collection I return and return to.

[Elizabeth]

I wanted to read this twice before writing about it. It moved me deeply. At the same time, I’m not sure I’ve fully grasped many of the poems, because they reach and wander. If I could grasp them, would I feel as amazed? I think so.

What a pleasure to discover, at the end of the book, a whimsical index of bird references. Whimsical and accurate, I should say.

Poteat reaches wide, casting to art, memory, landscape for anchors to his emotional poems. Generally, I am suspicious of such emotional poems that don’t clearly anchor their feeling, but here I accept them. The details are fresh and the emotion seems not like some hidden story, but like the overall sate of the writer, and so the poems become a window to his world.

Yes and yes.