Compass and Clock: Poems

The poems of Compass and Clock take their inspiration from the intersection of the natural world and the human, exploring the landscapes in which those intersections occur. Those landscapes range from David Sanders's native midwestern countryside to the caves of Lascaux and an enchanted lake where relics of lost lives are washed ashore. Yet, the true source of the poems' vitality is Sanders's attention to the missed or misread moments, those times when the act fails, and the perceived clashes with the actual.Here, the satisfying pairing of elegance and vulnerability invites the reader to tour those uncanny landscapes from which one returns irrevocably changed?-?refreshed, but wistful. In a review of his earlier limited-edition work, Time in Transit, the Hudson Review called David Sanders "a poet to watch." With the Swallow Press publication of Compass and Clock, we have the realization of that promise.

About the Author :
David Sanders is the author of two poetry collections from Swallow Press, Compass and Clock and Bread of the Moment. For twenty years he was the general editor of the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, and he was the founding editor of Poetry News in Review. His poems and translations have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. He is a native of Portage County, Ohio.

Review :
"David Sanders is a poet of craft and beauty…. There're no transgressions here, no showboating, or imbalance. These are poems of simple pure vision, calm poems, motivated by a wish to say what is seen, truthfully and clearly." (Washington Independent Review of Books) "David Sanders is a truly talented and subtle formal poet, but his formal hand is never heavy, and is almost always even transparent.… This is mature, complete work, the likes of which are rare. At their best, his poems remind us of Frost's maxim, that a poem is a stay against confusion." "Compass and Clock is the strongest new book of poems I have read in quite some time." "The truth these poems tell should be harsh—yet the quiet music of Sanders's language renders it beautiful." "For all its big concerns, Compass and Clock is not a noisy book, but one full of quietly moving meditations on a life deepened by the losses of childhood, love, faith, and artistic possibility: 'the strings / ease further out of tune against / the padded hammers waiting to be sprung.' But Sanders knows well it is love itself that makes us miss and mourn the things we've lost." "Compass and Clock abounds in the deceptively plain language and sensibility that, in other permutations, has produced poets like Clare, Borges, and Bishop. Sanders's kind, observant clarity can lull you into a sense of ease, even as he lays open the poignancy and diverse fascinations of existing on earth. Each subject is handled with the evenhanded generosity of a true artist, and turned quietly to the service of his imaginative take on the ancient themes. Sometimes one precisely chosen detail can seem to give you a whole world." "Don't deny yourself the full feast of Sanders' verse. Compass and Clock serves elegant and satisfying poems from the everyday ingredients of human experience." (Huffington Post)