Unfinished Figures

Dave Nielsen’s award winning first volume radiates empathy and good will while, at the same time, offering startling, image-based examinations of the physical world that dive lightning-like into the spiritual and back again. Not only are the poems made of everyday language spoken on the farm, the basketball court, in the barber shop, anywhere really, they also follow the American tradition of mining wonder and beauty out of ordinary moments and things. Their unadorned images and deceptively straight forward construction suggest kinship with the work of James Wright, Mark Strand, W. S. Merwin, and Elizabeth Bishop. The book is a marvelous first flight.