In the Black Window: New and Selected Poems (Illinois Poetry Series) Book

The title of Michael Van Walleghen's new collection evokes thematic preoccupations that have shadowed him throughout his long career. Appearing as a phrase in the poems themselves, "In the Black Window" more generally points to Van Walleghen's enduring interest in the intersection between inner and outer worlds of experience - those liminal moments in other worlds where we become aware of ourselves. We live at once in a strictly personal, material dimension but also in a distinctly spiritual one. Yet, when looking from a lighted kitchen into a night-black window on a winter evening, we might perhaps become suddenly aware not only of our own reflection, but also of our complicity in some deeper mystery altogether. Often quirky, odd, and disturbing, these poems also exemplify some of the most elegant formal free verse to be found in contemporary American poetry.Read More