"To be both visionary and accurate, true to physics and metaphysics at the same time, is rare and puts the poet in some rarefied company. Black, like a few other younger poets, is willing to include all the traditional effects of the lyric poem in his work, but he has set them going in new and lively ways, with the confidence of virtuosity and a belief in the ancient pleasures of pattern and repetition."--Mark Jarman, American Poet

Lush and daring, Malachi Black's poems in Storm Toward Morning press all points along the spectrum of human positions, from sickness, isolation, and insomniac disarray to serenity, wonder, and spiritual yearning. Pulsing at the intersections of "eye and I," body and mind, physical and metaphysical, Black brings distinctive voice, vision, and music to matters of universal mortal concern.

Query on Typography

What is the light
inside the opening
of every letter: white
behind the angles
is a language bright
because a curvature
of space inside
a line is visible
is script a sign
of what it does
or does not occupy
scripture the covenant
of eye and I
with word or what
the word defines
which is source
and which is shrine
the light of body
or the light behind?

Malachi Black holds a BA in literature from New York University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Texas at Austin's Michener Center for Writers. His poems have appeared in AGNI, Boston Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry. He currently teaches at the University of San Diego and lives in California.


Author: Malachi Black
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
Published: 11/18/2014
Pages: 96
Weight: 0.3lbs
Size: 8.80h x 6.00w x 0.40d
ISBN: 9781556594724


Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 09/15/2014

About the Author
Malachi Black's poems appear in AGNI, Boston Review, Narrative, Ploughshares, and Poetry, among other journals and anthologies. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and raised in Morris County, New Jersey. Black holds a BA in literature from New York University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at Austin's Michener Center for Writers. The recipient of the 2009 Ruth Lilly Fellowship has also received fellowships and awards from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the MacDowell Colony, the Sewanee Writer's Conference, the University of Texas at Austin's Michener Center, the University of Utah, and Yaddo. He currently teaches creative writing at the University of San Diego and lives in California.