Clear The Range

by Bruce Covey

These poems (many of them skewed sonnets) are both zany and direct—an unusual combination. They have a kind of post-traumatic clarity and simplicity. It’s as if the writer has come through despair and emerged into this world of superstores, superheroes, and irrational numbers having found a new way to be sensible.

—Rae Armantrout

A study in the brittle sensitivities of surviving countless losses, managing mental health conundrums while being awash in pop culture entertainments, parenting, and just trying to get through the world and remain whole, Bruce Covey’s Clear The Range reminds me that survival often looks quite mundane. “Tomorrow I need to trim my hair / I’ll look in the mirror when I trim my hair.” The specters of death and suicide bob up and down throughout these poems with a vague familiarity, like the acquaintance you’ve known for years but never had over for dinner. Covey’s manner of addressing banality through precise perceptions is a necessary and beautifully honest testament to the realities of resilience. A yin to the bright yang of Ted Berrigan’s sonnets, these sonnets show us another side of dailiness—its persistence.

—Sueyeun Juliette Lee

How often was I delighted by the generosity and virtuosity of every poem in Clear the Range by Bruce Covey? Too many times to name. These poems are made from, and speak to, this exact moment in language that elevates the everyday. I think of the best of Whitman. Of America.

—Paul Guest

208 pages, Paperback

Published October 19, 2017