A Precipice of Inches: Poems and Translations

Abstract

This collection represents an enduring fascination with how language connects sense and perception, whether it be a response to a work of art or an attempt to describe the condition of vertigo. Through lyric and narrative under lyric pressure, these poems explore different ways of making experience manifest by invoking memory, both personal and cultural. In some poems, memory transforms experience or vice versa, whereas others attempt to reconcile experience and memory and what may have been lost and gained over time. In addition, German language and literature are a constant touchstone. The translations included in the middle section reflect an interest in literary translation as its own creative project as well as its influence.