Understories (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798901468210)

"The darkness is a generous space," asserts Peter Schireson as he navigates the stories that underpin his life, "a man deep / in the grey season." Like that filtered light beneath a forest canopy, his poems are both playful and meditative. The poet "accompanied by Thelonius Monk / and a small glass of bourbon, / float[s] out into the silver mist / that hangs over the yard." At his mother's death, he recalls that he "kissed her on the crown of her head / ever so gently. / When finally she left, / she was accompanied by clouds." In plainspoken language, these lyrics question meaning, legacy, and grief with imagination and tenderness: "On the nightstand in a shaft of moonlight, / a photograph of my three granddaughters." Death may even have its consolations, "martinis and Chinese noodles, / the afterlife at its most relaxed."

-Abigail Wender, author, Reliquary

Schireson's last book was magical. I imagined a tuxedoed man pulling stars from his breast pockets, hives of bees from his hat. Now, in Understories, the magician has become enlightened. He stands in a kitchen, in a clean sweat suit, relaxed, hands at his sides, as if to say, "No tricks." It's a wonderful book.

-Peter Coyote, Zen teacher and author

Painters long ago mastered chiaroscuro to dramatize the space between light and dark, the contrast that captures what it is to be human: our angels and demons, our outer and inner selves, our lives and deaths. Schireson captures this interplay in Understories, always with empathy, often with a subtle smile. Schireson's writing is eye-level with the reader, as in "Goodbye, Ice Cream" "Beneath the tree, / a tearful girl / with tiny fingers / touches her hair, / her prom dress / in her closet, / her first child / in her belly." Understories is a welcoming collection, always extending an invitation to linger longer.

-DJ Murphy, author, Seeking Ordinary Joy @djmurphypoetry