Editor’s Pick

Foreword Reviews

Praise for Phone Ringing in a Dark House:

While each of Rolly Kent’s new poems has its own special character, all are committed to investigating the mysteries our lives are made of, moving from the personal to visionary realms. Throughout this marvelous collection, the quotidian and the unknowable are essentially metaphysical partners, as in his stunning final poem, “My Parents In the City of Light:” 'to give itself, life needs more than/ just our one body, or our little world.'

- Jonathan Aaron

These poems are marvels of generosity, wit, and tenderness. Rolly Kent understands the perilous comedy of daily life, and has caught in the surprising turns of his sentences the ways we worry and wonder about how we feel. Just look, the poems say. The world is almost as full of restorative loveliness as it is of loss. What consequential art does before anything else is to show us how to see more clearly. Again and again, Rolly Kent’s luminous and compelling poems do exactly that.

- Lawrence Raab

Rolly Kent's disarming “big baby flying through the dark” self-knowledge, exuberance and gratitude launch his poems deep in his reader's mind and heart. Phone Ringing in a Dark House is set in a present with a wide open door to the past and its cast of dead beloveds: parents who continue to confound, lost friends and lovers with wisdom to impart, a dog who remains loyal and arrogant beyond his dying day. Beauty, mystery, wonder— This is one of those rare collections that's truly memorable—every poem feels alive.

- Kathleen Flenniken

An absolutely delightful, masterpiece new collection!

-  John Busbee, "The Cultural Buzz"