One that is a singular part of a singular planet---an experiment in democratic governance still aspiring toward perfection, with an exuberant and frequently exasperating culture. In such a country, the glimpse of a horse under a full moon can be a defining moment, full of grace and a new, if not always comfortable, awareness. So it is with a saved lock of a lovers hair, the memory of a vanished glacier, or a childhood friend disappeared in war. As it is with a T-shirt company called American Fear or with a disabled soldier shaking hands at a gas pump. Elegiac and lyrical, playful and angry, Beautiful Country offers a vision that is fierce, unflinching, and clear.Lives of the Animals is, in my opinion, a living, breathing, honest-to-goodness contemporary masterpiece.---John Burnside, The Poetry House, ScotlandReign of Snakes must surely be reckoned by almost any standard as an outstanding and genuinely challenging achievement. The words of praise on the books cover are no puffery; these really are deep, dense, and richly intertextual poems that resonate with the language, images, emotions, and truths of centuries of poetry.---Stephen C. Behrendt, Prairie SchoonerIn Wrigleys poems, all aspects of a place are deeply loved and deeply observed....Such love and observation, of course, tell us as much about the poet as about the place, and tell us finally that the two are inseparable....The marvel of Wrigleys poetry is how deeply it makes us, too, of the place.---Richard Wakefield, The Seattle Times A powerful new collection from an award-winning poet. At the heart of Robert Wrigleys new book are the fears that find us at the darkest times and the hopes we rise to each morning. These poems explore that point where the sacred and the profane come together, that place of beauty inside the grotesque and the grotesque inside what is beautiful. The laws of nature, the commandments of capitalism, and the rules of war are transformed into songs of longing, patriotism, and dissent; we are also reminded of the grace residing in the glimpse of a horse under a full moon or the preserved lock of a lovers hair. Elegiac and lyrical, playful and angry, Beautiful Country offers a vision of a country that is unflinching, demanding, and generous.
