The Natural History of a Blade

Poetry. Philip Arnold's wonderful collection of poems, THE NATURAL HISTORY OF A BLADE, is set in and inspired by the North Carolina Mountains. In it exists the luminous intersection between the earth the speaker treads and a vanished world he longs for. This is a contemplative volume: hushed, solemn as vespers, yet jubilant with 'the tossed / and restless earth, pouring out / its life through the difficult / and miraculous growth.' Arnold reckons this mysterious earth, parsed out in splendid language, and reimagines it as his holy plat of remembrance.--Joseph Bathanti