{"product_id":"circle-back-poems-9781639550982","title":"Circle Back: Poems","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn aching meditation on the cyclical nature of grief and memory's limited capacity to preserve everything time takes from us.\u003c\/b\u003eHow does one make sense of loss--personal and collective? When language and memory are at capacity, where do we turn? Confronted with \"a year meant to end all \/ those to come,\" acclaimed poet Adam Clay questions whether anything is \"wide enough to contain what's left \/ of hope.\" In the absence of a clear way forward, the poems of \u003ci\u003eCircle Back\u003c\/i\u003e wander grief's strange and winding path. Along the way, the line between reality and dreams blurs: cows stare with otherworldly eyes, 78s play under cactus needles, a father becomes his own child, and the dead become something more complicated--a \"sketch turned to painting \/ left in a room dusty from \/ lack of passing through.\"But amidst these liminal landscapes, a \"thread of promise\" persists in poetry. As flawed as language is, we still turn to it for longevity, for love, like \"Keats, \/ sketching himself back into place.\" Vulnerable and nuanced, Clay details the difficult work of healing--and in doing so, captures those needful moments of reprieve in grief's \"strange circle.\" Two friends dashing through a sprinkler. A garden of startled birds. Out for a run some gray morning: a sudden patch of wildflowers. \u003ci\u003eCircle Back\u003c\/i\u003e is a bared heart, one readers will find as thoughtful as it is tender.\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAdam Clay is the author of five collections of poems: \u003ci\u003eCircle Back\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eTo Make Room for the Sea\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003e Stranger\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eA Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Wash\u003c\/i\u003e. His work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eBoston Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003e Ploughshares\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003e Cincinnati Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003e jubilat\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003e Georgia Review\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eand elsewhere. A recipient of a Literary Arts Fellowship from the Mississippi Arts Commission, he teaches at the University of Southern Mississippi and edits \u003ci\u003eMississippi Review\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Milkweed Editions","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50697402056978,"sku":"9781639550982","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_eb6064a1-0244-49b8-b079-b470ca2220dd.jpg?v=1734301023","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/circle-back-poems-9781639550982","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}