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'In an early verse from Enfolded in the wings of a great darkness, Peter Boyle describes a simple artistic tableau: "Round and clear / three pears sit on a small tray on the table," not unlike, he says, "the conical spirits / of some Chinese landscape / or Dutch still-life from the time of Vermeer." The invocation of these two genres points to the broader impulses of Boyle's elegiac, book-length poem. Like both still life and landscape painting, Boyle's work is about the disappearance of the human body, and how the ordinary world of things survives that loss. Boyle, though, is not especially interested in the subtleties of ekphrasis. In fact, the description of the pears is designed to underline their separateness from the world of language. They possess a "stillness" that captures Boyle's attention: "their fragrance of / water made solid // a presence to steady the mind."' (Introduction)
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Last amended 8 Jul 2022 14:29:03