Charles Jensen | Writer

Could not find a book cover, but perhaps because it is about to be rereleased by Graywolf as part of Mark Doty’s RE/view series that has republished so many great volumes of poetry.

I love books by Minneapolis poets. I do not know why. I love them when the poems are set in Minneapolis. It is a city unlike any other. In my memory, it is the only city. It is the city I go back to when I convince myself there will never be another winter. It is a city of people I love, people I loved, people I wanted to love.

And there was this book, which is so full of longing and yearning that you almost have to tear it in half as you read. It’s almost too much. It’s almost so dark and depressing you want to rush into it and shake him and say “GOOD GOD MAN IT CAN’T BE THAT BAD.”

But it is that bad. But it wasn’t always that bad, and that’s why this book sings. It remembers.

And that memory lingers like a curse.