Darker Ends

In his native England, Robert Nye is considered “one of the most startlingly original poets writing today” (John Horder, “London Tribune”). “Darker Ends,” the first collection of his poetry to appear in the United States, gives American readers a chance to appreciate the justness of this regard. Here are poems about two self-adoring people separated in marriage, about a bat in a box, buying bread, finding sixpence, and fishing for stars. The visions of these poems are at time entrancing, at times terrible – but the terror is checked by the mastery with which it is expressed. Obviously for Robert Nye, as for all good poets, words have a magic and ultimate power for those with the gift of using them well.