Maestro of Solitude

Highlighting work from the 1990s into the new millennium, Robert Bonazzi’s fifth book of poems—his first in 20 years—draws upon the slow-gathering wisdom of late middle age. These poems are dialogues between the clockwork of ego and timeless solitude and between earthly intimacy and the death of loved ones; lucid discourses on global politics and besieged communities; and witty takes on poetics and the arts. Often considered one of the unsung heroes of modern American poetry, Bonazzi has elicited praise from such contemporaries as Mark Van Doren, Thomas Merton, Guy Davenport, Robert Peters, and Naomi Shihab Nye.