Winter's Journey - Softcover

"[Dobyns's poetry] has a somber, eccentric beauty not quite like anything else around these days."--New York Times Book Review "[Dobyns] cuts his own darkness with a humor that is rooted in curiosity."--Publishers Weekly "[Dobyns] blends philosophical musings with daft, deft metaphors and a cheeky vernacular." --Poetry "A compelling writer whose voice speaks directlyto readers of all kinds. Using plain but always precise language, he plumbs the reservoirs of emotion lurking beneath the events of everyday life."--Booklist

Stephen Dobyns' fourteenth collection of poems embodies an unremitting faith in the power of words. Many of his narratives are drawn from the quotidian in public and private life and often employ extended tropes, which allow him to dive deep below the surface into the underlying meaning of the ordinary. Fiercely committed to seeing the world and himself with unflinching clarity, Dobyns says, "I'm looking for a miracle, I'll tell him. Not that I think / it will happen, I'm just keeping the possibility open."

By turns humorous, ironic, furious, sad, and wise, the poems in Winter's Journey are delivered in a precise, straightforward voice unafraid of pointing out that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes and revealing the often incomprehensible contradictions of human behavior.

It's hard work to celebrate the world's bright variety when full of hatred for the jackal's cynical chatter, its easy demolition of the beautiful. Do I hide from my thoughts or does my mind hide from my questions? Right now the only certainty is my own uncertainty. As the snow turns to rain, I hear a cardinal in the last of the sweetbriar announce with its three-note attack that it will be spring soon. Some things I must believe even if each particle of flesh cries no. What peril, what ravages lie ahead? I call the dog; we descend the hill.

"[Dobyns] is one of the very finest poets writing in America today. His poems are brave, ravenous, intensely moving, and utterly his own."---Thomas Lux

"If you think poems can't be riveting, you need to check this out...many of [Dobyns'] poems have a nice narrative line. They are also madly funny and sorrowfully ironic."---Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly

"Dobyns' work demonstrates depth of structure, phrasing, and narrative ability, which is his most conspicuous asset. Dobyns is a good enough storyteller...[to] dispel myths through mythic imagery and demystify what others have treated as mysterious."---Booklist