Publisher Description

In his compelling new collection, David Huddle writes. "We think / we stand in the vivid color of here and now / and view the past as drab black and white, / whereas the truth is - it's our future / that's the off-center, badly focused grayscale." Spiraling between the tenses of time, David Huddle creates in these vibrant poems a defense against the encroachment of age through the resources of language and memory, imagination and art. Moments recollected from his own life and family seem appealingly familiar; a teenage dance, Grandmama's morning coffee, young daughters playing dolls. With age, wonder has become understanding, and so when intimations of his death arise in the midst of sharing a joke with his children, the poet shows us the comfort and peace that murky prospect may hold. Undaunted, Huddle gives us in Grayscale not false hopes about our lives but a range of ways to transcend their limits.

Review

"His is a hard-won simplicity of phrasing, and it produces touchingly gentle. Stubbornly frank poems . . . fully adult poems."

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