IN THE DARK, SOFT EARTH

The natural world melds with the spiritual unknown in this collection of poetry.

The epigraph to this new offering by Watson asserts: “Finding meaning / in the subtle underpinnings / of this soft earth.” This reads as the poet’s mission statement for the forthcoming pages, where he delights in illuminating the disregarded minutiae of human life. The fluid collection is divided into 10 books, each no more than 50 pages long, and complemented by paintings from a broad range of artists, from Nicholas Roerich to Pieter Bruegel the Elder. In the opening poem, “origins,” the author’s camera eye zooms outward from microcosm to macrocosm, capturing “distant sands / turned white as flecks / on wild black hair” to the infinite expanse of “where the world begins / before Creation.” This strikingly visual collection then seeks to understand humankind’s place in the universe by taking readers on a poetic journey through time and space. Watson’s writing is sparse yet deeply thought-provoking, as in the poem “fossils,” which celebrates an indelible declaration of love across the ages: “In two thousand years / they will find an oak fossil / with the lovers’ names.” The poet has the ability to evoke complex ideas regarding existence with an enviable economy of line, as here in “particles”: “All the dust / that’s swept into / the world’s wind / and the particle / that is me.” Watson’s previous work has been criticized for its fragmentary nature—this offering is also heavy with visually arresting images, but read in sequence, the poems serve to inform one another concurrently. For example, the poem “she sleeps” could be interpreted as a fragment: “She sleeps / beneath the moon / as I slip / into the covers / of imagination.” But it is embellished by the following poem, “desert of dreams”: “She shadow-walks / across the desert of dreams / to pierce my sleeping mind.” The result is an intoxicating, acutely observant collection where landscapes shift continuously and meaning is in a constant state of flux. Fans of Watson’s work will find this his most penetrating, cohesive volume to date.

A dazzling and intriguing poetic examination of the wonders of the universe.