Door to Door

Winner of the 2001 Poets Out Loud Prize, Door to Door ranges from the wry romance of Changing the Oil(You make love the way you change the oil in your Oldsmobile) to the salesman in the title poem who sees what the glacier sees in the onslaught of spring.The poems stand at the crossroads of mystery and love, hoping to trade their soul for Federico Garca Lorca's guitar, or perhaps Jimi Hendrix'.

"His poems are pitched instead at an informal level that is at once colloquial and nuanced, and capable of handling classical subjects as well as popular culture."

Chosen by Yusef Komunyakaa as the winner of the 2001 Poets Out Loud Prize, Door to Door ranges from the wry romance of "Changing the Oil" ("You make love the way you change the oil in your Oldsmobile") to the bitterness of "The Blue Willow Curse, " and from the astronaut in "Repairing the Hubble Telescope, " "floating in God's brain with nothing but a screwdriver and a box wrench, " to the salesman in the title poem who sees "what the glacier sees in the onslaught of spring." The poems stand at the crossroa of mystery and love, hoping to trade their soul for Federico Garcia Lorca's guitar, or perhaps Jimi Hendrix'.

"This is the it they mean when they say this is it, " says "Quarter Past Blue, " and like the mother in "Ensenada Wedding, " explaining to her son her love for his father "in his captain's uniform, those medals like candy brimming over the cut glass bowl of his heart, " and the religious devotee in "Foxfire" ("God is my secret; he knows I'm his girl"), these poems explore "it" -- love's extremity. in "The Piano Tuner's Widow, " they hope to discover a "safe house or after-hours dive at the river's edge."

The nocturnal toy peddler -- Lullaby -- Ensenada wedding -- Foxfire -- Weather on the plateau -- Orestes remembers the sea -- Tails of ions and dust -- Cleaning te fish -- The Blizzard -- Quarter past blue-- The blue willow curse -- Love spell in two parts -- Bonfire -- Love and photosynthesis -- The barometer and the shield -- Helen back home in Sparta -- Wolf point -- December matinee -- Daphne's apology -- Th§eráese -- The piano tuner's widow -- Lily -- Plush fire -- Into the poplar trees -- Letter to Emily Dickinson from the Golden Gate -- Elegy written on unlined paper for Emily Dickinson -- Iseult of the white hands -- Afterlives -- Wild onions -- Changing the oil -- The stamp collector -- The bluest days -- Shopping at night -- The poetry merchant -- Why I am not a novelist -- Vertigo at sea level -- Salamander -- Eurydice's song -- Ars poetica -- Film noir -- Door to door -- Thinking about sex -- The ballad of Martin and Geraldine -- Dido's closing argument -- Colorado -- The hypnotist -- Blue whale -- Mayflower -- Repairing the Hubble telescope -- The man who could not fly.