Savage Baggage

Poetry. "The poems in this book are full of sharp detail, words that seem like one-celled creatures with a life of their own, keen wit, and observations on 'getting the soul arranged in space' that cut to the chase. In these mostly short pieces, each tight as a fist and clear as a windowpane, Mitchell redefines love and nature, in a style that is a kind of meditative activism" - Terence Winch. "What emerges from Mitchell's original combination of glacial remove and after-shocked elegance is wry humor, a battered, haunted dignity and a chromatic timbre devoid of pretense" - Dean Young. "What makes much of [Mitchell's] work so memorable is the respect he has for language's slow workings. Though Mitchell's poems are often memory narratives, they are as much about our need for narrative as they are about any particular subject matter, and they are quiet poems never insisting on our attention" - James Harms.