Rest on the Flight Into Egypt

From the outskirts of the fevered empire, and the embers that were its heart, Moritz sings us to our selves ? our failures, our cruelties, our stupidities, and beauty which even now astonishes and leaves us breathless. Genuine political poetry is immensely difficult. Moritz succeeds, not because his list of atrocities is longer or more shocking, but because his vision is underwritten-not whitewashed-by an ecstatic lyricism that knows evanescence is the only enduring truth.

A native of Niles, Ohio, A.F. Moritz has lived in Toronto since graduating from Marquette University in Milwaukee in 1974. He teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Toronto. His poetry has received the Award in Literature of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, as well as Canada Council, Guggenheim Foundation and Ingram Merrill Foundation fellowships. He has translated books by Ludwig Zeller including In the Country of the Antipodes: Selected Poems 1964 ? 1979 and The Ghost?s Tattoos.