I first fell in love with his work (Thanks) when it was featured as a preface in Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies.
I adore the manner in which he manipulates language to extract such heartfelt, poignant responses from readers.
After absorbing one of his poems, I feel enriched, moved and undoubtedly understood...all by a complete stranger.
He read this poem on the air, and I haven't stopped thinking about it all day:
A Single Autumn
The year my parents died
one that summer one that fall
three months and three days apart
I moved into the house
where they had lived their last years
it had never been theirs
and was still theirs in that way
for a while
echoes in every room
without a sound
all the things that we
had never been able to say
I could not remember
doll collection
in a china cabinet
plates stacked on shelves
lace on drop-leaf tables
a dried branch of bittersweet
before a hall mirror
were all planning to wait
the glass doors of the house
remained closed
the days had turned cold
and out in the tall hickories
the blaze of autumn had begun
on its own
I could do anything
[from The New Yorker]
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