These poems question the sounds that are meaning. They interrogate where meaning resides and whether they are in any way, rigidly or loosely, wed to the words that carry it. There is a nod toward logic and at once an acceptance of its limits. These poems are landscapes, the meaning altering with the movement of clouds, with the changing light. Irony sometimes is the way we can be earnest.

Percival Everett is the author of sixteen novels, three collections of short fiction, and two volumes of poetry. He is the recipient of the PEN Center USA Award for Fiction, the Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature, and a New American Writing Award. His stories have been included in the Pushcart Prize Anthology and Best American Short Stories. He has served as a judge for, among others, the 1997 National Book Award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1991. He teaches fiction writing and critical theory and is currently Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.