Donetsk Interval

"Towards the end of Donetsk Interval, the poet inserts a love song to his beloved Valerie, or rather Valeries, for she remains a bright multiplicity he never gets to the bottom of. Perhaps the same can be said of the collection as a whole. Above all, these poems are about the search for what will suffice, by turns tender and dark, ardent and whimsical, elegiac and celebratory. Formally, a lot goes into the mix: sonnet and ode and blank verse, hymn and ballad and jeremiad, etc., all of it shot through with a voice of wisdom and wit and longing. In poem after poem, the poet is on trek, whether looking back from Ukraine, exploring the wilds of Colorado, petitioning God, or ventriloquizing Moroni as he wanders final apocalyptic landscapes. Janus-like, Dennis Clark surveys past and future, letting contradictions and uncertainties cast a shrewd light on the misty present." -Lance Larsen