The Bridge of Sighs: Poems (The Miami University Poetry Series)

In The Bridge of Sighs, which collects thirty-two beautifully crafted, deeply felt poems, Steve Orlen proves that pleasure and longing can coexist uniquely in a variety of everyday experiences. Invoking those experiences in a music as subtle and probing as any in contemporary poetry, Orlen shows us how such moments enlarge us, if we attend them fully. From the touching, funny, exhortative poems about and for his young son, Cozi; to the remarkable title poem, a meditation on a moment of awakening from his own boyhood; to the book's concluding poem, whose speaker enjoys an instant of grace, "emptied of need/ And happy at last," seated at a fountain with a nameless shopper, "Her dress...a field of flowers," these poems move and enlighten and instruct and delight.