Light Water Light Water Light Water Light

What if all time were present, if that were the ultimate gift of consciousness: to know it and to walk among its phantasms, fears, constructs, contentions, and wild inscrutable junk? Who would even dare to imagine such a result for the human project? William Ryan, that’s who, and he has done it in this magnificent and sinuous sequences in which the poems grow from fourteen line sonnets to sixteen line sonnets and culminate in a Coda of over 300 lines. It is a monumental work of the imagination, all of it delivered in a language of dark and surreal speed that teaches a whole new form of thoughtfulness.

William Ryan is the author of the novel, Dr. Excitement’s Elixir of Longevity. His stories and poems have appeared in dozens of journals, including The Colorado Review, Minnesota Review, The Journal of Irish Literature, Art City, Red Dirt, Willow Springs, Stringtown, among others. His previous books of poems are Eating the Heart of the Enemy and To Die in Latin. He teaches at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.