Idiopaths

Poetry. "The poems in this book provide a vision of a world fallen nearly apart, but not completely, and there's the metaphysical rub. By all accounts—the doomed family, the material detritus, the ruination of nature—we deserve the full-blown apocalypse. Its absence is eerie but ultimately instructive, in a punishing way. This is a book that takes the reader not down an inescapable hole but through a physical and spiritual darkness, if not to the light then dimly to the lesser dark. This is a stark and electric book, full of honesty, intelligence, and a kind of grace."—Maurice Manning

"Surreal, arch, deep and chaotic, these poems convert post-modern angst into pleasurable weaponry. The images arrive like gunfire and leave like 'the slow pulse of an oak.' Anything is possible in the furnace of this poet's brain. Perceptions burn until 'sweetness and horror [are] fused / in a single music.' Metaphor- monger that he is, Rasmovicz demands to be described as only his idiopaths would have it: with 'a paper cut for a voice,' his lines make unforgettable rumble. In no one else's poetic can morning be described as 'a worm grinding across red bricks.' Impossible, yet here he is: a poet who makes depression read like a blessing."—Larissa Szporluk