The Almanac for Desire

by Gary Fincke

Price 93 pages, $13.95 paper

ISBN 1-886157-28-6

It's almost impossible to find the one significant thing to say about Gary Fincke. This poet does so many things right, and these poems discover so many good places, that any review of the book will smack of reductionism. --The Kansas City Star

Gary Fincke is a poet with a large heart, a whole soul, and a strenuous, insatiable intellect. He seeks to write the entire world onto his pages, everything from ancient history to modern science, alpha to omega, schmaltz to neutrons, "the noise of insects, the shifting/Of dust, the chatter of elements/Emitted from a billions tongues/Like legacy's esperanto." These poems smolder like the Centralia mine fire; they speak to us of "the warm discoveries of touching," "the terrible success/Of learning place," and "the great vandalism of chance." These are poems that delight, instruct--and amaze. --David Citino

In these new poems Gary Fincke continues to dive deep into our innumerable frailties and, once again, he confronts them, and transcends them, with his sure breath-rhythms and word-craft. This is the alchemy of fine poetry I love, to turn the sorrows of our mortal existence into redemptive, musical language brimming with powerful images of our world. In The Almanac for Desire, Gary Fincke gives us poems that are, as the last line of "The Spiritualist" tells us, ". . . What forces us back to simple light." A terrific book by a terrific poet. --Len Roberts

Gary Fincke engages those large ideas that shape the fabric of family and community over the course of time. And he does it without giving up intensity of language or his poet's capacity for introspection. His voice vibrates with originality and substance. These are ambitious, serious, breathtaking poems. --Greg Michalson

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