The Distance Between Two Hands

A rare kind of stillness seems to be the hallmark of a Greg Watson poem, which is all the more remarkable because the poems themselves are anything but static. The poems are about moments caught, pinned down, observed, but they open into such wide emotional and erotic terrain in which the literal, domestic world slides effortlessly into the figurative. We should be grateful that such poems exist, and that our paths can cross with theirs. Watson's images are surprising and ring true; while the themes--love, loss, faith, desire, and the beguilement of the world--are familiar enough, these are not "familiar" poems. Once you have encountered these poems you will wonder how you ever managed without them. --Jude Nutter, author of Pictures of the Afterlife and The Curator of Silence