Falling in the Direction of Up

Poetry. Kurt Luchs is well-known for brilliant comic writing (such as his previous IT'S FUNNY UNTIL SOMEONE LOSSES AN EYE), but he has always written poetry, and in recent years his accomplished verse has appeared in dozens of journals. In FALLING IN THE DIRECTION OF UP, his first full-length collection, his voice is lyrical, direct, mysterious, funny and awestruck by turns, often in the same poem. Its four sections form a redemptive arc: from harrowing childhood memory, to closely observed nature lyrics and meditations, through a poetic high noon teeming all at once with the surreal, satirical and soulful, coming at last to a powerful sequence of love poems that range from joyful to mournful to sensual to bemused. Here is the work of a poet writing at the height of his powers, what James Wright called "the poetry of a grown man."