Kenneth Chamlee’s If Not These Things embodies some of the most precise and detailed sentences that I’ve read, in poems of constant discovery and nuance. You can feel the poet’s mind here, flying over this book’s landscape like the shadow of a flock of birds. Words are like atoms, the more pressure you put them under, the more radioactive they become. These poems hide their labor and assimilate into the reader “just as seamless as you please,” but every reader that encounters them will “drift forward, without knowing why” to the next poem, their minds flecked with images that they cannot forget.
—Keith Flynn, author of The Skin of Meaning and editor of The Asheville Poetry Review

In his wonderful new collection, Ken Chamlee asks the enormous questions, chief among them: What is it like, and what is the human cost, to tread on this mysterious earth? Indeed, so many of these marvelous poems are rooted in the natural world—a world capricious with dreams, imminent danger, and wild epiphanies. Nothing escapes the poet’s soulful gaze, from the infinitesimal to the grand. In an early poem in If Not These Things, the speaker elegantly inquires: “Can any poem endure / like an ambered ant’s / clear vesture?” Chamlee then goes on, poem after memorable poem, to answer unequivocally, resoundingly, Yes.
—Joseph Bathanti, North Carolina Poet Laureate (2012–14), author of Light at the Seam

A clear and tender eye for unexpected correspondences which rise, like whales in suburban lawns, from the quotidian, is what Kenneth Chamlee’s If Not These Things offers. The poems begin with a vision of the jet stream dipping “down like a gourd, ladling away summer” and go on to find and make meaning in the singular, familiar moments which define every life: sounds of a mysterious animal giving birth in the attic, an elusive pinata, a walk with the dog, the strange dreams which haunt a couple denied children. “And if not these things,” the poet asks, “then what / is one day in all / your life?” What indeed?
—Catherine Carter, author of Larvae of the Nearest Stars

"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

PBShop.store UK

Fairford, GLOS, United Kingdom

5-star seller

AbeBooks seller since June 11, 1999

Shipping rates from United Kingdom to U.S.A.

Item	10 to 20 business days	10 to 20 business days
First item	US$ 4.45	US$ 4.45

Delivery times are set by sellers and vary by carrier and location. Orders passing through Customs may face delays and buyers are responsible for any associated duties or fees. Sellers may contact you regarding additional charges to cover any increased costs to ship your items.

Payment methods

Store description

**Please note our transit times are from the date of dispatch.** We first started out as “The Paperback Exchange,” a chain of physical bookstores where we would part exchange your beloved books for new stories to transport you to faraway places. However, as shopping started to evolve to online shops and marketplaces, we bid our stores goodbye to become “PBShop.” This transition has only allowed us to blossom as we now ship thousands of titles to book lovers across the globe. We pride ourselves in being a community of local book lovers which allows our passion and devotion to shine in everything we do. In 2020 we not only celebrated our 20th birthday but our 1st birthday as being completely employee owned after becoming an E.O.T in September 2019. We are proud to be different and embrace standing apart on a book mountain by working from a virtual inventory which allows us to provide thousands of books that may be difficult to get for your bookshelf or your studies. Working with a number of different suppliers allows us to explore other avenues such as puzzles, sheet music and even stationery so we really do have something for everyone. Life is about being versatile in all realms of existence. If this is your first purchase with us, or you are a returning customer, we would like to welcome you to the PBShop family, for there is no friend as loyal as a book. We are a company who put our customers at the centre of everything we do as we understand the importance of reading because once you learn to read, you will forever be free. There are a whole lot of things in this world of ours that we are yet to explore, which is why we will forever inspire curious minds.

Specialty

Hardbacks, Paperbacks

Seller's business information

Pbshop.co.uk

Unit 22 Horcott Industrial Estate, Horcott Road
Fairford, United Kingdom GL7 4BX

Contact sellerView this seller's itemsView seller's storefront

If Not These Things

Item description from seller

Bibliographic details

Synopsis