Circle Back

An aching meditation on the cyclical nature of grief and memorys limited capacity to preserve everything time takes from us. How does one make sense of losspersonal and collective? When language and memory are at capacity, where do we turn? Confronted with a year meant to end all / those to come, acclaimed poet Adam Clay questions whether anything is wide enough to contain whats left / of hope. In the absence of a clear way forward, the poems of Circle Back wander griefs strange and winding path. Along the way, the line between reality and dreams blurs: cows stare with otherworldly eyes, 78s play under cactus needles, a father becomes his own child, and the dead become something more complicateda sketch turned to painting / left in a room dusty from / lack of passing through. But amidst these liminal landscapes, a thread of promise persists in poetry. As flawed as language is, we still turn to it for longevity, for love, like Keats, / sketching himself back into place. Vulnerable and nuanced, Clay details the difficult work of healingand in doing so, captures those needful moments of reprieve in griefs strange circle. Two friends dashing through a sprinkler. A garden of startled birds. Out for a run some gray morning: a sudden patch of wildflowers. Circle Back is a bared heart, one readers will find as thoughtful as it is tender.