Crush Depth

This collection of lyric poems offers a unique look at the shared, but very different experiences of life in the Navy for father and son. The poems form a three-part narrative of life aboard a naval ship, the father and son's month-long trip to Australia, and the son coming to understand how he has been shaped by his father's experiences. Poet Michael Spence shows a range of poetic technique, deftly matching form to content and historical account to emotional reflection.

About the Author :
Michael Spence spent a hitch as a junior naval officer aboard the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), then returned to Seattle, where he spent thirty years driving public-transit buses in the Seattle area. He has three poetry collections: The Spine (Purdue University Press, 1087), Adam Chooses (Rose Alley Press, 1998), and Crush Depth (Truman State University Press, 2009). The Bus Drivers Threnody was a finalist for The New Criterion Poetry Prize. In 1990, Spence was awarded a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and he has received half a dozen nominations for a Pushcart Prize. His work has appeared in many magazines, including The American Scholar, The Chariton Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Hopkins Review, The Hudson Review, Literary Imagination, Measure, The New Criterion, The New Republic, The North American Review, Poetry, Poetry Northeast, The Sewanee Review, The Southern Review, Tampa Review, Tar River Poetry, and The Yale Review.

Review :
For years I've admired Michael Spence's technical expertise, his preoccupation with prosody, with sound, with old forms, and here, in his third book, he combines both skill and maturity to give us more than just a random collection. -- Samuel Green "Washington State Poet Laureate" I am impressed, reading the poems in Crush Depth, at how lucky Spence was. His time in the Navy was the making of him, and these poems, which also remember his father's naval service in World War II, are the proof. This is a book unlike any other in contemporary poetry, and it is Michael Spence's best to date. -- Mark Jarman "Vanderbilt University" Michael Spence's indelible portrait of Navy life confronts the morality of the sea, while never shying from its seamier aspects: port-town prostitutes, grainy porn projected on a bed sheet, brutality, mortality. Beneath the code of military conduct lie the deep-seated mysteries of human conduct and our relationships with others. -- David Yezzi "executive editor of The New Criterion" "Beneath the code of military conduct lie the deep-seated mysteries of human conduct and our relationships with others--in this case, the relationship between father and son. Spence's lyrics resonate like steel hulls under intense emotional pressure, their assured lines haunted by patriarchal silences and love. A heartbreaking collection!" -- David Yezzi "Executive Editor of the New Criterion"