Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Poets and Poems: Carl Phillips and “Pale Colors in a Tall Field”


You read the poems in Pale Colors in a Tall Field by Carl Phillips. And you quickly gain the sense of walking into a dream. A vivid dream might happen in vivid colors, crowding out other, paler events and memories. But as Phillips suggests in his poems, those paler images are important, too. In their own way, even as they might recede, they shape not only what we dream, but who we are and how we live. 

That’s the soul of this collection, a dream journey into memory reality, and identity. Phillips works the soft whites, the pale blues, and the light greens, the colors we might often forget but also the ones that make possible what comes after.

 

It’s difficult to select one favorite poem from this collection. It’s a slender volume of 34 poems, poems that seem deceptively quiet and thoughtful but which also can pack a punch.

 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

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