“After the Reunion” is an intensely lyrical collection of love poems and elegies from “the most expansive and moving poet to come out of the American Midwest since James Wright,” as Marilyn Hacker has described him. In these quiet, powerful, and eloquent poems, David Baker explores the kinship of love to loss, discovering that each is an inevitable component of the other. The final movement of the book is a unification of these two modes and becomes a celebration of continuities, kinships, and renewals.
These beautifully-shaped poems are fueled by a deep human desire to rescue the transient moment and memorialize feeling, thus comforting our losses and making language suffice, letting lyric poetry stand as a permanent witness to our passing.”