Dark Pool

Taking its title from the root meaning of Dublin, Ben Howard's fifth collection of poems probes the provenance of naming. Ranging in locale from eastern Iowa to County Clare, these poems endeavour to call the things of this world by their "rightful names." Whether the object of contemplation be a vanished Dublin bookshop, a bronze cast of Abraham Lincoln's hands, the month of February, or a son's twenty-first birthday, Howard's poems seek wholeness amidst flux and fragmentation. Grounded in contemplative detachment, they cast a clarifying light on contemporary life.