Fulton is exactly the kind of poet Shelley had in mind when he said Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. Verse In this eagerly awaited collection of new poemsher first in over a decadeAlice Fulton reimagines the great lyric subjectstime, death, loveand imbues them with fresh urgency and depth. Barely Composed unveils the emotional devastations that follow trauma or griefextreme states that threaten psyche and language with disintegration. With rare originality, the poems illuminate the deepest suffering and its aftermath of hypervigilance and numbness, the formal feeling described by Emily Dickinson. Elegies contemplate temporal mysteriesthe brief span of humananimal life, the nearly eternal existence of stars and nuclear fuel, the enduring presence of the artsand offer unsparing glimpses of personal loss and cultural suppressions of truth.
