Spell

The Los Angeles Times praises the wordplay and the richness of Bergland’s poetry, “erupting through deep forest, with all the exuberance and reticence of Emily Dickinson.” In this new collection the poet asks: How do poems enter essence? Through poetics, or the absence of poetics? Through language or vapor? Through revelation or fear of heart? And how does writing inform? Through biography, place, the body, and language? “To objectify the answers is to demean the poems and cheat the reader,” the author states.