In a Time of No Song
Poems by Jeff Bien
Introduction by A.F. Moritz
Exile Editions, June 2015
From the Publisher:
This remarkable collection of poems lures you in, at first to stand alone in the dark, but slowly there comes a hint of light from a crack beneath a door, then a riot of sensuous intensity as you open up to the beauty that lies between the folds of words, bursts of poetic energy that cast warm light over all shadow.
From the introduction by A.F. Moritz:
What is this poetry like? There are not many precedents for it or bodies of work very similar to it in English…Bien’s word hoard is all his own, though the way he animates it, constantly connecting the outer with the inner, the familiar with the distant, the limited with the vast, the realm of thought with the realm of life, non-sentient things with sentient ones…
In a Time of No Song will impress readers with its poetry of pure sentience and godlike laughter….The mysticism of the source is here, but most of all, I think, we will remember the great enactments and themes of this book through its omnipresent, brilliant tributes to life.