In this Book
- Dreamless and Possible: Poems New and Selected
- Book
- 2014
- Published by: University of Washington Press
- Series: The Pacific Northwest Poetry Series
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.
Table of Contents
- Dreamless and Possible: New Poems
- Burning Bush
- pp. 4-5
- Time Travel
- p. 8
- The Hot Corner
- p. 9
- The Dream of ’64
- pp. 10-11
- At Midnight
- p. 12
- Tiger Tiger
- p. 14
- Dust to Dust
- p. 15
- Home Is the Sailor
- p. 16
- Letting Things Go
- pp. 19-20
- Jung Doubts
- p. 21
- Desperados
- pp. 22-23
- Circles in the Shell of the Ear
- pp. 26-27
- The New Creation
- p. 28
- Unaccountable
- p. 29
- Something Borrowed
- p. 30
- “I Have Wasted My Life”
- pp. 31-32
- Visitation
- p. 36
- The Mysterious Courtesy of Fondness
- pp. 39-40
- from The Crime of Luck (1976) & Why Shouldn’t I (1977)
- The Wu General Writes from Far Away
- pp. 43-44
- Dear Mrs. Terry
- pp. 45-46
- The Bell Maker
- p. 47
- Hymn for His Hands
- pp. 48-49
- The Rose Fields
- p. 52
- Figure Fishing at Night
- pp. 53-54
- from Though Silence: The Ling Wei Texts (1982)
- Introduction: A Reverie
- pp. 57-58
- Ling Wei in Exile
- p. 59
- Ling Wei on the North-Road
- pp. 61-62
- Ling Wei Parable
- p. 63
- Winter Sequence
- p. 73
- Devil-Mere
- p. 74
- from Sea Change (1985)
- A Reminder to the Current President
- pp. 78-79
- At the Equinox
- pp. 80-81
- In Grey Water: The Day
- pp. 83-85
- Liberty & Ten Years of Return
- pp. 88-89
- Paid in Full
- p. 90
- Ramon’s Letter
- p. 91
- The Voyage
- p. 93
- The Pitcher’s Pride
- pp. 94-95
- The Death of Giovine
- p. 96
- from Sweet Afton (1991)
- SWEET AFTON, Pennsylvania, Oct. 1, 1937
- pp. 99-100
- Old Nicholsen Himself
- p. 101
- Master Ronald Westman, Excluded from the Tea
- pp. 103-104
- Cloudia’s Angel
- pp. 105-106
- Bluestocking
- pp. 108-109
- The Runaways’ Story
- p. 111
- Elizabeth’s Story
- pp. 112-113
- Old Lecher Errat
- p. 114
- Plato Hall
- pp. 115-116
- The Gallery of Plato Hall
- pp. 118-122
- This Is the Narrator, This Is I . . .
- pp. 123-124
- from Memory and Heaven (1997)
- Alienation
- p. 127
- Four Solitudes
- pp. 128-129
- The Ecstasy of Ceasing to Know
- pp. 130-131
- Dialectic from Three Windows
- pp. 133-134
- Blessing’s Precision
- pp. 135-136
- Talk with the Moon
- pp. 142-143
- The Record Player
- pp. 145-146
- The Pipes of Oblivion
- p. 147
- Everything
- pp. 148-149
- Mean and Stupid
- pp. 150-151
- Stay with Me
- pp. 152-153
- Brownie Hawkeye
- p. 156
- Exclusivity
- pp. 161-162
- from Just Waking (2003)
- If the House
- p. 165
- The Fugitive Lover Says “I’m Telling You”
- pp. 166-168
- Here in a Provident Stillness
- pp. 169-170
- Like Feelings
- pp. 171-172
- Two Poems, with Death Betwixt
- pp. 173-175
- He Thinks of the Sea
- pp. 176-177
- The Treetop Mole
- pp. 178-179
- Close to the Vein
- p. 184
- At James Island, Early June
- pp. 185-186
- from Light’s Ladder (2004)
- Trusting the Beads
- pp. 192-194
- If the World Were Glass
- p. 197
- A Party on the Way to Rome
- pp. 198-199
- The Counterchime
- pp. 200-201
- He Writes to the Soul
- pp. 203-204
- King of the Butterflies
- pp. 205-207
- The Fire Elegies
- pp. 208-211
- All Day at the Brainard Pioneer Cemetery
- pp. 213-215
- Cole Porter
- pp. 216-217
- Like Rain Descending
- p. 219
- The New Orpheus
- p. 220
- Acknowledgments
- pp. 223-226
- About the Poet
- p. 227
- A Note on the Type
- p. 228