In A Valley

Abstract

In a Valley collects poems united by a consistent tension in voice, as the poet attempts to balance two competing impulses towards "meaning"--through musicality and through statement. By integrating these elements, the writer searches for a distinctive voice within the many spheres of influence--of his predecessors, teachers, peers, and of his unique experience. Though the poems collected here do contain a few similar strains in subject and method, each of the three sections centers, instead, around a different activity: longing, worry, and pursuit.