Renunciation

"A densely imagined and richly felt poetry where abstractions are clothed in flesh and blood." -- Eugene Weekly ADVANCE PRAISE "By some process that seems magical Corey Marks can enter the lives of others--the famous and the anonymous--and remain himself in a voice so singular we learn to trust it totally. This is what the new century's poetry will sound like when it is written by someone truly gifted and compassionate. Marks believes so completely in the power of the imagination his words can burn you." -- Philip Levine "What has been renounced ... is that stiff-necked assertion of self which makes for our discomfort in the presence of so much ambitious new poetry. Here, everything, however high it aspires, is tractable and, in the loftiest sense, free. However exalted, the poems take their meandering ways with a certain ease, the release (and the relief) afforded by a man who knows not only his own mind but his own measure." -- Richard Howard "Corey Marks has the superb ability to create delicate and strong bridges of narrative poems that combine intellectual acuity with emotional involvement." -- Adam Zagajewski