Underground: New and Selected Poems

“Jim Moore writes of history, of love, of pain, of the intimate revelations of a consciousness alive to itself.” —C. K. Williams

“It’s coming so fast,”

says an old woman across from me,
speaking to no one in particular:

she nods her head in agreement with herself
and strictly speaking
who can argue with her? —from “Underground”

Jim Moore’s first career retrospective shows a poet whittling down experience to its essential confrontation with one’s own limitations, whether it be time running short, or understanding running thin, or capacity to think or feel or love enough running low.Underground gathers the best poems from Moore’s seven previous books and includes twenty new poems. This is the definitive volume by a poet of great depth and generosity.