In the Sunroom with Raymond Carver

A new collection of poetry by Dannye Romine Powell remains cause for celebration; and her latest, In the Sunroom with Raymond Carver, underscores her abiding reputation as a poet of breathtaking candor and precision, the consummate craftswoman, who painstakingly parses syllables into words as if sifting for gold. These yearning, often prayerful, poems are laced with shimmer, incandescence-sometimes blinding-moments of recognition and epiphany that inform every chiseled line Powell commits to paper. Above all, her work is intricately exacting. She gets things right: the truth, the light, how we say things, how we don't say things, the nuanced choreography of imperceptibly monumental moments. Yet, make no mistake: the poet desists sentimentality, as she does so fiercely at every turn in this amazingly beautiful and courageous volume. This is a very important book by a very important poet at the summit of her powers. -Joseph Bathanti