Give Me an Endless Range - John Baalke

In Give Me an Endless Range, the vast and the detailed balance: ice and monsoon, tundra swan and sandhill crane, car and coracle, adobe and lighthouse. The sweep moves slowly through hidden details where unknowables wait to be known. Wang Wei and Li Po hover over Baalke's whole collection, acknowledged familiarly in his adaptations of their poems. John Baalke takes us on a pathless trail to the temple of nature as itself... in this endless range we're given, we know ourselves inseparable from its heartrending "whelm and wonder" of the all that is, right here.

-Jeanine Hathaway, author of Long after Lauds

John Baalke's Give Me an Endless Range is an ecstatic journey through "the places you will travel... / somatic markings that will settle / in your memory, make you / who you are." Each poem is a signpost through wild grass and clouds, rocky canyons and pines, and the internal wildernesses we often dare not brave. Baalke's images arrest the senses as we are swaddled in the sights and sounds and scents of the sacred in the natural world. We are reminded the secrets found in the crags of mountains and a time wearied face hold the same heft as revelations from on high... This collection-like life-is a journey worthy of the undertaking.

-Matthew E. Henry, author of The Third Renunciation

In John Baalke's astonishing debut collection, the ordinary is transfigured by the poet's perceptive-and receptive-gaze: a gnarled spruce becomes a dancing seraph, swirling krill are crystal pillars, and the "vaulted arch" of a beloved's inner thigh becomes architecture of Notre Dame cathedral. Drawing on Eastern and Western contemplative traditions, including a series of adaptations of Tang dynasty poets, these poems often lead us into the wilderness, the desert spaces of the American southwest, forests and mountainous terrains of Alaska... Baalke's poems invite us to slow down and, through the poet's eyes... see it anew, with tenderness and awe...

-Claire McQuerry, author of Lacemakers

The wildness in these beautiful poems about Nature by John Baalke calls forth attention, admiration, and deep feeling. Tender landscapes, both real and imagined as metaphors, unfold before the inner eye of the contemplative reader: from canyons, fields, and coastlines to mountains, clouds, and bright skies. Living creatures abound! The birds are especially wondrous: a swan reflected in water, a waxwing in death. There is a sense of the Creator breathing through the Creation... This collection is a breath of fresh air, perfect for winter evenings, spring mornings, or even just a few free moments between dusk and dawn. If read in the dark, they bring the light.

-Jane Beal, poet and author of Sanctuary, Rising, and Song of the Selkie