{"product_id":"leftover-distances-mike-james-9781952411472","title":"Leftover Distances","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Mike James is a poet in love with bridges, a poet of praise \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ein search of connective tissue, relentlessly on the move, \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003esearching for signifiers, trying to find that loose thread of \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003einspiration. \"The sky is something we can drink from,\" he \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ewrites. \"Darkness is never clean or clear,\" knowing a human \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ebeing in love with mystery is never finished, and that the \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eworld is mostly hidden from us, and poetry is one of the \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eways humans discover the most important aspects of them-\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eselves, illuminating and untangling as it tells. These lovely \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003epoems are a blessing, an unexpected warm wind blows \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethrough them and amazing declarations shiver forth as \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJames travels and watches and listens. \"Sound brings us to \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eour senses,\" said Thoreau, and the poems here are quiet \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eand tight, acutely aware of their own dissolution, and the \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003etemporary spaces that we occupy. \"The moon looks nothing \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003elike the one I touched,\" writes James, and with a deft\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003esurrealistic brush he fills in all the colors he finds and the\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eones he had hoped to find. There are wonders to discover \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ein every poem and I gobbled them up. Sit with this book\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eand listen and the singing will settle in your imagination.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDon't just take my word for it, open the cover and start\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eswimming and you will be immersed in a better world.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e -Keith Flynn, editor of \u003cem\u003eThe Asheville Poetry Review\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e and author of\u003cem\u003e The Skin of Meaning\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Mike James writes with a toymaker's sense of wonder. His poems, like toys, delight and fascinate, leading the reader's imagination in strange and beautiful directions. 'I never put a feather back on a bird, ' he says in 'It's Lovely, at Last, ' and we, looking on, know exactly what he means and how that irrational failure feels. James's poems attack the mind with a surrealistic bent like the verses of James Tate. They spiral and swirl, then lift and float. 'Most of my friends live with hallucinations, ' he says in 'Discount Ghazal of Everyday Saints.' To read these poems is to be one of James's friends, dancing with phantasms. His writing is something to be experienced as much as read: a journey well worth taking.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e -Ace Boggess, author of \u003cem\u003eI Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Prisoners\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Like C.K. Williams, Mike James is a master of the flexible long line and its component parts. Compact in form, expansive in vision, his poems render ordinary events in startling focus, and find surreal gestures where most of us wouldn't expect them. I envy the precision and energy of poems like \"Thinning Stars, Along the River,\" and the humor of those like \"Where I'm From.\" This is a vivid and lively book, amusing and sobering at once.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e--William Doreski, author of \u003cem\u003eRiding the Comet\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Mike James\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 1952411475\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781952411472\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Luchador Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 03\/05\/2021\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 100\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.26lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.00h x 5.00w x 0.24d","brand":"Mike James","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48519708442879,"sku":"9781952411472","price":13.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_9640e315-a0a3-4ede-9f13-cd2568f70b91.jpg?v=1778738331","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/leftover-distances-mike-james-9781952411472","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}