Dreamless and Possible: Poems New and Selected

by Christopher Howell

This generous volume of new and selected poems by Christopher Howell encompasses three decades of his distinguished work, drawing upon all of his previous books. Dreamless and Possible chronicles his wide range of interests, expressed by blending elements of the surreal with biography, imagist economy with a storyteller’s informality. It also shows the development of his signature style, reflected, as poet Albert Goldbarth has written, in poems “connected by deep thought worn lightly, and by large vision writ in small details.”

These are poems of palpable force. Howell thinks out loud as he works his way through what charms, challenges, and defines the human project. He questions, tests images and associations, and leaps, trusting himself, into midair. In consequence, the cerebral energy propels his poems beyond statement and into startlingly evocative modes, grappling with and sifting profound matters of memory, imagination, and grief, tempered always by joy.

Genres: Poetry

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

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

[Nicole Hardina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christopher Howell is a poet who knows that "we are each of us combustibly alone." He illustrates that it is so, and then leads the reader to solace, providing at once grief and relief from it, as well as the familiarity of having arrived at a kind of home. The world is more beautiful for him and his poetry in it.

[James Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful collection. Remarkable diction and range. Pacific Northwest immanence haunted by lingering transcendence. A work of mourning in some ways.