Andrew Zawacki, By Reason of Breakings (2002)

If the human soul could squint, the meticulously recorded landscapes in By Reason of Breakings are what it very well might see. For each of the poems in this collection evokes a setting in which the inner self seeks counterpart, confirmation, from a world that offers―far too often―little more than its own unremitting conceits. 'Dark be not dark but some other desire,' Zawacki proposes as his poems, deflective as light itself, shimmer, refract, and―with uncompromising acuity―emit a rare and eloquent luminosity quite their own.