Dreamless and Possible

This generous volume of new and selected poems by Christopher Howell encompasses three decades of his distinguished work, drawing upon all of his previous books. Dreamless and Possible chronicles his wide range of interests, expressed by blending elements of the surreal with biography, imagist economy with a storyteller's informality. It also shows the development of his signature style, reflected, as poet Albert Goldbarth has written, in poems "connected by deep thought worn lightly, and by large vision writ in small details." These are poems of palpable force. Howell thinks out loud as he works his way through what charms, challenges, and defines the human project. He questions, tests images and associations, and leaps, trusting himself, into mid air. In consequence, the cerebral energy propels his poems beyond statement and into startlingly evocative modes, grappling with and sifting profound matters of memory, imagination, and grief, tempered always by joy. Christopher Howell has published eight books of poetry, most recently Light's Ladder. He has received numerous awards for his writing, including two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and two Washington State Book Awards, and his work has three times been included in the Pushcart Prize Anthology. He is professor of English and creative writing at Eastern Washington University, and lives with his family in Spokane.