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THE BOOK OF SHADOWS

THE BOOK OF SHADOWS

$21.00Price

ISBN: 978-0-9800289-6-6

Pub Date: Fall 2009

Pages: 260


By Carlos Reyes


Over the years Carlos Reyes has written poems of the highest order and it's a pleasure to see so many of them gathered together in The Book of Shadows. This is a necessary book that clearly shows the author's deep humanity and his sophisticated skill; like all first-rate work it returns our lives to us. In poem after poem readers are given those quick shocks of recognition which make them say, Yes, this is the way it is! Such an important contribution to our literature deserves to be recognized and honored by everyone who cares about the art of poetry.

—Vern Rutsala


Mr. Reyes is one of our local and national treasures. His poetry is as clear and strong as his social conscience. One is always struck by his sensual and sensory qualities: the touch, taste, feel, color of things, and his ability to capture a mood, a world, in a handful of lines.

—Carolyn Kizer, judge's comments from A Suitcase Full of Crows (1995); Finalist for 1996 Oregon Book Awards (1996)


    Of the many strange, tangy things that happen in the Northwest, Carlos Reyes is a connoisseur. He saves up glimpses and smells like little cameos and jewels for his poems. Entering his book is like beginning a tour of the country, a walk through the woods, a trip along aromatic trails; the smell of cedar and the drip of water are with you. Far scenes are brought in with a zoom lens, and the Reyes flavor of living and recollecting is laced gracefully through page after page of surprise and recognition blended into insight.

    —William Stafford, from The Shingle Weaver's Journal (1980)


    Poet and translator Carlos Reyes lives and writes in Portland, Oregon when he is not traveling. He travels a lot, and whether he journeys to Panama, Spain, Alaska or Ireland, those experiences inspire and inform his poetry. In 2007 he was honored with a Heinrich Böll Fellowship, which gave him two weeks to write on Achill Island, Ireland. He has had fellowships to Yaddo and the Fundación Valparaíso (Mojåcar, Spain). He was poet-in-residence in 2009 at the Lost Horse Ranger Station in the Joshua Tree National Park.

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