Sky by Christopher Buckley

Philip Levine recommends Sky, poems by Christopher Buckley: "Buckley is a California poet who—though he has published at least ten books—seems little known in the East. His poems are both Western and universal. It is the landscape of California that serves as the backdrop to the striving for significance that enriched his boyhood in Santa Barbara and was lost somewhere in that territory we call growing up. The poems are modest, straightforward, intensely lyrical, and totally accessible. Whether he is addressing his departed friend, the poet Ernesto Trejo, or the great swell of the Pacific Ocean that haunts his dreams, the voice is always the same, modest and direct. This is a humble poetry of great truths and profound emotions that never overstates its concerns for the events both in and above the world. It rewards countless readings and never betrays itself." (Sheep Meadow)