Laughter of the Sphinx

A powerful, indelible new collection by Michael Palmerone of Americas most important poets (The Harvard Review)Michael Palmers new booka collection in two parts, The Laughter of the Sphinx and Still (a cantataor nadafor Sister Satan)contains 52 poems.The title poem begins The laughter of the Sphinx / caused my eyes to bleed and haunts us with the ruin we are making of our world, even as Palmer revels in its incredible beauty. Such central tensions in The Laughter of the Sphinxbetween beauty and loss, love and death, motion and rest, knowledge and ignoranceglow in Palmers lyrical play of light and entirely hypnotize the reader. The stakes, as always with Palmer, are very high, essentially life and death: Please favor us with a reply / regarding our one-time offer / which will soon expire.