Infinite Altars - by James Brasfield (Paperback)

About the Book

"LSU Press Paperback Original"--Title page verso.

Book Synopsis

In his second poetry collection, Infinite Altars, James Brasfield tracks restless interplays of light on a fallen feather outside an Italian chapel, the surface of the Gowanus Canal, and a forest footpath after an evening of rain. Atmospheric and reflective, these poems travel with equal ease through the world of fine arts and the places where we live, highlighting the vivid sights and sounds of each in turn.

At a sudden encounter with everyday beauty, serenity suffuses through the author: "Something of that calmness goes with us / back into the world." Brasfield's poems invite readers to embrace these unexpected and arresting experiences.

Review Quotes

"In Infinite Altars, the altars are surfaces of light comprising all that we see. Its poems, narrative and expressive in quality, are often startling in content and repeatedly treat questions of light, presence, space, and the act of finding--among the infinite manifestations of change--singular places where we engage with our passing days and our passage into the future."--Project MUSE

"In these poems, Nature, always changing, always enigmatic, is like a human face. Brasfield's moving lines decipher the gestures of this captivating and intriguing face, which always has something subtle and deep and real to say about us. Words feel like silences. The air of these enveloping and serene poems enters your lungs and you breathe it for quite a while. Then, you open the book again, for another breath."--Arturo Fontaine, author of La Vida Doble

"The collection has at its heart an instinctive patience, asking of its readers a corresponding willingness not just to witness or overhear, but to engage in the construction and accumulation of meditative insight. That responsive participation constitutes the most valuable (and these days, somewhat unusual) pleasure of lyric poetry, which Brasfield's book offers generously throughout."--The Florida Review

"This book makes one realize anew the power of narration in poetry. In Jim Brasfield's gifted hands it brings to remarkable life the smallest moment, the oldest myth, the acuteness of time."--Vivian Gornick, author of The Odd Woman and the City

About the Author

JAMES BRASFIELD received fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. He is a recipient of a Pushcart Prize, the American Association for Ukrainian Studies Prize in Translation, and the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. He is the author of Ledger of Crossroads.