Innermost Sea

The Innermost Sea contains a heady mix of contemporary topics delved into and connected through the motif of loss. Memory— “retaining all its past lives,” writes the poet—steers readers through chaos and cataclysm toward epiphany. There are “Lamentations,” and what is “Worth Dying For,” as we “Mortals” find “Sometimes Loss Weighs Lightly” but it “always weighs.” What we ultimately discover remains personal, yet in the particular lie our deepest connections. Utterance is given shape and sound through the poem, the poet writes in “Poem Registering in the Throat,” as readers wander in a dream-like book store of discovery and the chimerical. The ordinary juxtaposed with the extraordinary are intermingled in poems including “Albino Alces Alces” in which the poet’s persona rows a small boat toward an albino moose calf in the Quebec wilderness. Whether we find our poetic voice examining a sculpture or walking Blind Beach, we are connected through our shared experiences, reaching for understanding. Textured with literary allusions and abundantly detailed, the poems in this volume are highly visual. There is always a story beneath the cover, the skin. Dafoe’s ekphrastic poems, including the Faulkner prize winning poem “Entrance Exam,” take readers beneath the canvas’ periphery to the lives of the women subjects. The concept of diving below surfaces connects all of the poems in this rich volume. “We are water,” Dafoe writes, “tossing about wildly.” The Innermost Sea is a poetry book in which journeys take in the political, cultural, and personal landscapes before moving into our internal seas. Dafoe’s multi-layered book of poems stays with you long after closing the last page.