Changeable Thunder marks David Baker’s emergence as a major contemporary poet. To his abiding sense of the Midwest―its politics, people, and landscapes―Baker adds a powerful historical dimension, with poems ranging from Puritan New England to the modern subway. Of particular note are poems on the works of other writers, as he reanimates Shelley’s letters, Samuel Sewall’s diaries, and Walt Whitman’s novel. With brilliant technique, dazzling formal variety, and moving intimacy, Baker’s poems explore personal illness, erotic and familial passion, artistic creation, and the constant work and changing weather of one man’s life.

– LINDA GREGORSON

 David Baker’s eye on nature is unblinking, and his observations delicate and accurate, but his eye on human intimacies and interactions is just as clear. For me, he is the most expansive and moving poet to come out of the American Midwest since James Wright.
– MARILYN HACKER