The Condition of Music

Poetry. In the ruminative movement of these poems, Eric Selland takes the reader into a contingent, often grief-laden terrain. Here, isolation and a broken, disjointed history are shot through with moments of release, the word-on-a-thread, melody. Ever attentive to the 'condition of music', Selland here uses prose rhythms to powerful effect, piecing together the harmony suggested in paradox: 'Strike out the tongue. Enmesh the ear.' This body of work seeks coherence 'more defined by the ruptures opening in the sequential' and herein lies an uneasy beauty. The consolations by which it beckons are haunted, and haunting. -- Elizabeth Robinson