"east east the great lake"
from Dan Beachy-Quick's
Mulberry

Dan Beachy-Quick:

Dan Beachy-Quick teaches at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago's MFA Writing Program. He is author of three books: North True South Bright, Spell, and Mulberry, and is the recent recipient of a Lannan Foundation Residency.

About Mulberry:

Mulberry is Dan Beachy-Quick's dazzling third collection of poetry, and in it he further solidifies his place as one of our most important experimental – yet entirely lyrical – poets. The work of a still-rising star, here the experiment is almost otherworldly: see and hear the poet as silkworm, weaving meditations on nature, art, history, philosophy, and the self. Unraveling before our eyes are parts of a world we thought we formerly knew as safe, as singular. Impelled by metaphor and lilting repetition, Mulberry seeks a sense of the world by sensing the world, and ultimately, locates a sense of the Infinite. Here is a layered, intricately voiced and utterly assured poet who, with magnifying glass in one hand and telescope in the other, shows us the way to something new and delightful with every reading.

"For anyone who thinks that Postmodern poetry represents a complete break from that of the Romantics, Dan Beachy-Quick's Mulberry will come as a revelation. Surely this is a collection of lyrical ballads; and surely the poems are created from memory embowered (note the intricately woven structures from which the words start) and thus free. There is thusness to these poems; it is evident in the sense of intercausality they express and in the associative flow with which they progress. But there is thisness, too; at myriad exquisite points the poet yields to the specificity of particulars, particulars coming into view inexplicably and remaining inexplicable in themselves. Such thisness is what Beachy-Quick calls 'the violent now,' announcing simply (but it's not simple), 'Here I am.' This is a wondrous book."
— Lyn Hejinian

"The American soul's most necessary and demanding purpose now is the unsettling of its own wilderness, inside and out. Those who cherish that purpose, those keen to live and to worship in the present tense again, will find good helps and comradeship here in Mulberry. Dan Beachy-Quick, having accomplished the articulateness of stars and blossoms, of stars IN blossom, is perhaps our most living poet now."
— Donald Revell

"Mulberry trees bear leaves of different sizes and shapes as if their evolution were continuing at a visible rate. Dan Beachy-Quick's Mulberry also slows change and time to a luminous visibility; here, in lyrics of singular intensity and originality, he weaves the green forms of his world."
— Susan Stewart

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