Over the course of the 20th Century, T. S. Eliot’s “Hollow Man” finally learned to Howl with Ginsberg, but has since evolved into the 21st Century’s Empty Man—and Woman. Quickening: Poems from Before and Beyond is about a certain hope to answer the existential quagmire of daily life we find ourselves surrounded by: a poetic reminder that the same miracle that made Something to begin with, recurs every moment of our lives. These poems attempt to illuminate, investigate, and celebrate the mysterious place-that-is-no-place where the Center does hold: the moment that brings us from Chaos to Cosmos, from Void to Creation, from Nothing to Everything. . . . Hence the subtitle, for Quickening is a collection of Poems from Before and Beyond –plus what lies between.

James B. Nicola’s full-length collections include Manhattan Plaza (2014), Stage to Page: Poems from the Theater (2016), Wind in the Cave (2017), Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists (2018), and Quickening: Poems from Before and Beyond (2019). His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice award.

published by Cyberwit.net, 2019
Order at https://www.cyberwit.net/publications/1217