A Breathable Light

By Rodney Torreson

At the beginning of Rodney Torreson's fascinating second book, everything is in its place--ordinary, time-honored, known. Then, quite without warning, the familiar becomes new, alien, strangely awful or strangely dazzling. In a landscape of ditch, fence, branch, stone, and weed, it seems all living creatures are in league with the dry wind and the icebound ruts--deer, pig, horse, cow, even the innocent, suckling lamb. In subversive ways, A Breathable Light takes the human figure out of his seat in the foreground, strips him of all privileges and asks him to understand himself as nature understands him. . . Thus, as an old gate-post settles into mud, the farmer sees his own quietly abandoned ambition; night falls and a tractor starts up of its own accord; the family dog has wool scraps in its teeth; a saddle slips and the upended rider finds himself galloping in air, "head striking the / grassy sky until he sees] stars . . ." This is the truth about nature and human nature, and in forty-four beautifully uncluttered poems Torreson shows us the world as it's always been--a realm of unrelenting wonder.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 193097423X
• ISBN13: 9781930974234
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: New Issues Poetry and Prose
• Length: 56 Pages
• Weight: 0.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.9"