The Gathering of the Elders

This major collection by the astonishing Wesli Court is an event calculated to shiver all literary seismographs. Readers addicted to poetry, but weary of ill-made poems, can latch on to it with joy. Aspiring poets can seize it as a handbook of models, learning how to write anything from an ode to a sonnenizio, from an epigram to a blues epilogue. While often striking a wistful, wintery tone of hail-and-farewell, there are notes of infectious cheer and some genuine surprises - even a poem to fulfill an unused title that Wallace Stevens left lying idle. With unique skill, Court shows us what a truly good metrical poem used to be, could be, and (in his able hands) still is. - X. J. Kennedy It's an increasingly rare pleasure to read poems about the real world in language as clear as it is lyrical, wth deep roots in the past and illuminated by careful rhyme. - Miller Williams The miraculous thing about all these poems is the way they avoid sentimentality and the temptation to reinvent the past, preferring, instead, a difficult blend of affection and detachment, honesty and regret. - Rhina P. Espaillat.