Cold Snap as Yearning

Whether confronting a gravel road, a hallucinatory vision of a horse-woman, a deep sensitivity to noise, or the curiosity of crows, Robert Vivian sees the world in a novel way, and this collection gives readers the opportunity to share his unique and intriguing vision. Rooted in closely observed objects and situations, these meditative essays expose the strangeness that resides in the familiar, the extraordinary masked by the mundane. A view from deep inside a snow bank, the warfare between a homeless woman and bits of trash, the way a broken toaster becomes a repository of dignity—each visionary disruption becomes the occasion for reflection and revelation. His subjects, finally, are men and women, isolation and alienation, city life, noise, and nature—recognizable topics made new by Vivian's provoking juxtapositions, his compelling use of language, and his transcendent vision of what it means to be human in the twenty-first century.