Vertigo

The Dead Man returns in Vertigo, Marvin Bell’s latest vibrant and provocative collection. A master of the surreal yet everyday, Bell created his everyman—a character unlike any other in American poetry—in the late 1980s and has continued to improvise on the life of the Dead Man, looking ahead while grappling with “the beginning, when mountains, canyons and seas were new, / before the moon had eyes, before paper, before belief.” The Dead Man is an overarching consciousness that stands witness to violence and political turmoil, celebrates daily joys, and challenges the scope of human knowledge. Bell’s uninhibited imagination and powerful command of language are at their best in Vertigo.