Synopses & Reviews
Dreamless and Possible chronicles Christopher Howell's wide range of interests across three decades of distinguished work, expressed by blending elements of the surreal with biography, imagist economy with a storyteller's informality.
Christopher Howell is professor of English and creative writing at Eastern Washington University.
"A magnificent collection, by an exceptional voice and talent, one that enriches all of us writing and reading poetry in these times." -Christopher Buckley
"Finally having the best of Christopher Howell's work of the past 30 or so years is a great gift to the readers of poetry. His voice is grave, irreverent, funny (at times) and his newest poems are also lighted by (I know this is a dangerous word) wisdom." -Thomas Lux
Review
". . . gleans the Spokane resident's best work from eight books and his haunting new work." -Mike Dillon, City Living
Synopsis
This generous volume of new and selected poems by Christopher Howell encompasses three decades of his distinguished work, drawing upon all of his previous books. Dreamless and Possible chronicles his wide range of interests, expressed by blending elements of the surreal with biography, imagist economy with a storyteller's informality. It also shows the development of his signature style, reflected, as poet Albert Goldbarth has written, in poems ?connected by deep thought worn lightly, and by large vision writ in small details.?
These are poems of palpable force. Howell thinks out loud as he works his way through what charms, challenges, and defines the human project. He questions, tests images and associations, and leaps, trusting himself, into midair. In consequence, the cerebral energy propels his poems beyond statement and into startlingly evocative modes, grappling with and sifting profound matters of memory, imagination, and grief, tempered always by joy.