| Winner
of the 2001 Poets Out Loud Prize
Fordham University Press
Chosen
by Yusef Komunyakaa as the winner of the 2001 Poets Out Loud
Prize, Door to Door, as Komunyakaa says in his introduction,
"beckons the reader to enter worlds of surprising poignancy
in a time of the cultivated glib. If these poems at times
seem surreal, it is surrealism with a compelling voice, not
as an embodiment of linguistic or imagistic tomfoolery, but
as a way of unveiling mystery that redeems." |
| “A
poet of many angles and strategies, Thomas can write about contemporary
lust and then suddenly introduce Ötzi the Ice Man, a recently
discovered cadaver frozen in the Alps. To write this dangerously
requires control … Thomas leaves you awestruck at his
variety, spontaneity, tonal changes from high formal to mock
outrage, humor and arcane information: 'all that ice that came
so near the sun / and had not been glimpsed since the Sumerians
/ baked the mud for the ziggurat of Ur / and went down to bathe
in the Euphrates.'” |
| —Brendan
Galvin, SHENANDOAH (Winter 2003) |
| “These
poems take bold risks, but the connections almost never feel
forced; the sheer extravagance of the language, and the metamorphosing
consciousness that underlies it, are carefully and precisely
managed, never merely showing off. … Like the door-to-door
salesman of the title poem, Thomas knows how to get his foot
in the door, intrigue and seduce us, and finally take us somewhere
completely unexpected. … Thomas is a poet of considerable
grace and vision, and his book is a remarkable debut.” |
| —David
Walker, FIELD (Spring 2003) |
| “Door
to Door leaves me speechless. … His manifold details limn
the spiritual in the erotic and, perhaps more crucial, the erotic
in the spiritual. Like Hopkins, he charges the world with numinous
grace.” |
| —Vince
Gotera, North American Review (Sep-Oct 2003) |
| “Robert
Thomas has written an admirable book. He debuts with a distinctive
voice that examines the ordinary outside the boundaries of the
conventional.” |
| —Robert
Bense , Chelsea 75 (2003) |
| “Robert
Thomas ... is entranced by language, but he wishes for a more
immediate and simultaneous recognition of both the divine beauty
of a turn of phrase and the meaning that that phrase conveys.
His method relies on the power of the unusual juxtaposition
and a striking lyricism that sends a shiver along the sacral
vertebra (our holy bone, wherein encased perhaps our sixth and
seventh senses lie).” |
| —Jeffrey
Bockman, Literal Latte (2002) |
| “'Come
outside for a moment and look at the steel-eyed sun,' Robert
Thomas invites us in the title poem of his accomplished and
remarkably promising first collection of poems. What is remarkable
about Door to Door is its intensely intimate lyricism.
Thomas is at his best in his accounts of human sexual and psychological
relationships.” |
| —Milton
“Mont” Welch, Meridian (Fall/Winter 2002) |
| “There’s
a lushness of language and imagination in these poems which
reminds one of Neruda or Márquez, and beside which much
American poetry can seem drab and utilitarian. Robert Thomas’
speakers navigate effortlessly through the amniotic fluid of
reverie, a realm where the spiritual and the erotic are always
spiraling in surprising directions. Like the astronaut in one
of his poems, Thomas looks down on the manifold peculiarities
of the floating world with cunning, tenderness and wonder.” |
| —Tony
Hoagland |
| “The
poems in this brilliant and urgent first collection traverse
the territory between feverish delirium and remarkable sanity.
In Door to Door, the lost voices of goddesses as well
as salesmen are invoked, and Mozart stands comfortably beside
Our Lady of Baby Back Ribs. Robert Thomas is a poet for the
21st century—witty, worried, and ecstatic—and this
is a collection that will last.” |
| —Laura
Kasischke |
| “Robert
Thomas’s Door to Door beckons the reader to enter
worlds of surprising poignancy in a time of the cultivated
glib. The imagery is original and surefooted, and the book’s
pacing is almost mathematical, moving with controlled ease.
Many small doors can spring open in a single poem; he ushers
us through doors that defy bafflement and orchestrated confusion.
Realism and surrealism merge in some of Thomas’s most
striking poems, where two or more worlds collide softly—a
tableau of twists and turns that always bring the reader to
a door where one is invited to see oneself.” |
| —Yusef
Komunyakaa, from the Introduction |
Poems
Meridian (Fall/Winter 2002)