Esteemed poet Cole Swensen's ninth collection is haunted by vision and transfixed by light. Treating subjects from landscape to sculpture to a 19th century technical encyclopedia, the poet is fascinated with light, glass, mirrors, flame, ice, mercury — things transparent, evanescent, impossible to grasp. Likewise Swensen's lyrics, which, with elliptical phrasing and play between visual and aural, change the act of seeing — and reading — offering glimpses of the spirit (or ghost) that enters a poem where the rational process breaks down.

"[T]hese poems...shape-shift constantly, sometimes building on fragments but always moving fast....A sense of history and discovery propel them forward. Highly recommended." Library Journal

"Delicately speculative, as if forced to take in the myriad conditions surrounding and evinced by things, Cole Swensen in this new book undertakes meticulous descriptions. But the poems, while subtle, are also blazing. Swensen is unafraid of what's happening. There is enormous grace in these poems, there is also serious daring. The pleasure of reading them is intense." Lyn Hejinian

"Goest, sonorous with a hovering 'ghost' which shimmers at the root of all things, is a stunning meditation — even initiation — on the act of seeing, proprioception, and the alchemical properties of light as it exists naturally and inside the human realm of history, lore, invention and the 'whites' of painting. Light becomes the true mistress and possibly the underlying language of all invention. Swensen's poetry documents a penetrating 'intellectus' — light of the mind — by turns fragile, incandescent, transcendent." Anne Waldman

Treating subjects from landscape to sculpture to a 19th century technical encyclopedia, the poet is fascinated with light, glass, mirrors, flame, ice, mercury-things transparent, evanescent, impossible to grasp. Likewise Swensen's lyrics, which, with elliptical phrasing and play between visual and aural, change the act of seeing-and reading-offering glimpses of the spirit (or ghost) that enters a poem where the rational process breaks down.

From "The Invention of Streetlights"

Certain cells, it's said, can generate light on their own.

There are organisms that could fit on the head of a pin.

and light entire rooms. .

Throughout the Middle Ages, you could hire a man.

on any corner with a torch to light you home.

were lamps made of horn.

and from above a loom of moving flares, we watched.

Notre Dame seem small. .

Now the streets stand still. .

By 1890, it took a pound of powdered magnesium.

to photograph a midnight ball.

"Goest, sonorous with a hovering ghost'which shimmers at the root of all things, is a stunning meditation-even initiation-on the act of seeing, proprioception, and the alchemical properties of light as it exists naturally and inside the human realm of history, lore, invention and the whites'of painting. Light becomes the true mistress and possibly the underlying language of all invention. Swensen's poetry documents a penetrating intellectus'-light of the mind-by turns fragile, incandescent, transcendent."-Anne Waldman

Cole Swensen is the author of ten previous books of poetry including Goest, which was a National Book Award Finalist. She has also won the San Francisco State Poetry Center Book Award, two Pushcart Prizes and a National Poetry Series selection, as well as grants for translating and writing. She is on the faculty of the Iowa Writers'Workshop.