Temperaments

Dave Dragone writes about beauty wherever he might find it. These are poems that feel good in the mouth when spoken aloud, each one shining like the full moon drifting through a clear, perfect Rhode Island night. In spite of flighty fads, in spite of the insanity pervading our culture and our lives, here is a poet who massages the language to find precise metaphors - often in the world of ocean and sky - to show us a rich reality that is always there if we take the time to actually look. Dave looks. - Tom Chandler, Poet Laureate of Rhode Island emeritus. Like the finely tuned strings of a well-played instrument, each of David Dragone's poems in this, his debut collection Temperaments, sounds a pleasing tone of its own, evokes a particular mood, and provides a particular insight which, as Robert Frost said, "reminds us of something we didn't know we knew." But, gathered together in a book, his work resonates on a grander scale-as a rich testament to the continual rediscovery of the mystical in the ordinary. Whether taking a walk, commuting to work, tuning a piano, or bathing his infant daughter in the kitchen sink, Dragone's art celebrates the "found treasures" of the everyday and "helps us bear the imperfect." A wonderful and auspicious debut. - A.M. Dolan, Playwright, Robert Frost: This Verse business. In this, his first book of poems, David Dragone casts his poetic lines just enough, then reels them back in with skilled restraint. A fine balance of lush imagery and straight-forwardness makes these poems accessible, yet in no way simple. Readers will feel the undercurrent of emotion churning beneath the surface-the weight of regret; the buoyancy of hope-and glean meaning from what remains unsaid. Each poem offers a glimpse into the personal and universal experience of being human. Dragone writes: "I found some gems whose hard edges had resigned to the simple things that were already beautiful," and, in doing so, reminds us that grati