Description: Memory is "smoke off a damp fire" as Bottoms explores absence, quiet spirituality, and the changing landscape of his childhood.
Review Quotes:
"[He] makes astounding leaps of both faith and doubt, and does so with insight, honesty, and flashes of anger - all characteristic elements of his work." -The Southern Review
"Bottoms' poems do what the best poems have always done: They compel us to reread them. They linger in our minds. They alter our perception of the world." --Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"One finds here what one expects in a book of good Southern poems: clear narratives... evocative images, searching irony, and meditative poise." --Library Journal
"David Bottoms is brilliant in the clarity and richness of his language, profoundly humane
in the breadth and compassion of his vision. He is quite simply one of the best poets writing today." -Jane Hirshfield