Dilemmas of the Angels ─ Poems

In David Romtvedt’s seventh collection, Dilemmas of the Angels, the intersections of the public and private, and the global and local, are explored with a focus on the strangeness of everyday life. Throughout, the bonds and challenges of parenthood and marriage underscore larger questions about one’s place in space and time, as well as the tensions between the worldly and the divine.

Romtvedt, Poet laureate emeritus of Wyoming, shows an appreciation for the distinct mountainous landscape of his adopted home, a setting paired with accounts of Nicaragua, Rwanda and the Congo, to produce a remarkably diverse but intrinsically connected planet.

A mediation on the ever-present need to balance the materiality of our exterior lives with the riches of our spiritual ones, Dilemmas of the Angels is a masterful testament to a very human struggle.

David Romtvedt is professor of creative writing at the University of Wyoming. The author of more than a dozen books, he has also served as the Poet Laureate of Wyoming and, with the bands Ospa and The Fireants, plays the button accordion.