Carl Phillips: Speak Low.

Carl Phillips Speak Low (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

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Here are words Carl Phillips uses in his new book of poetry, Speak Low: jackdaws, shadowland, talismanic, cypress, wingbeat, plash, lightless, hoofbeat, stableboy, foxheads. He also uses the word "body" repeatedly. To me, there is a certain psychic physical pleasure in a silent reading of Phillips' language, as though he has extracted from a magic dictionary the essence of what it is like to be a soft person close to the earth and to hear that in your head is to happily evaporate. I am now very tired but in the natural way that comes when you are warm. MS