Before Our Eyes
Visual, auditory, tactile–ever attentive to perception–Lawrence Joseph’s third book of poems, Before Our Eyes, generously, almost exotically, blends various tones, atmospheres, and textures into forms of concentrated, pitch-perfect invention. The poet, an astute aesthetician, is also astutely conscious of history, a critical observer of public life. He explores the American identity. He investigates meaning and language. He celebrates the mysteries of beauty and love. The result is a poetry of illuminating effects which captures a profound sense of what it’s like to be alive, and what it means to write poetry, in a radically changing time.
