Listening to the Bowl Crack

In Listening to the Bowl Crack, Robert Bense shares a poet's view of the world. Itis a world of searching and remote voyages, small moments and discovery, wherelanguage creates emotion and draws us in for still another line, one more poem.

From grand opera to a temple garden of azaleas, Bense's poetry carries us acrosspoignant landscapes of myth, memory, and daydream. In verses such as thosefound in "Peacock Hill" we encounter the past touching the present and edgingtoward the future:

I read their names.
Touch their stones.

My tracks are all over.
I could leave. Or stop here and disappear.

And, at some point, readers may realize that through Listening to the BowlCrack, Bense has created a world in which we all might wish to travel.