Constant Traffic by Justin Paige

Whether it is a bird that oversleeps and “misses the V” or sand that after “eons of change” ends up in underwear, you will find these poems filled with fresh perspectives on everyday human experience. I read these poems with great curiosity, always wondering what was coming next. The poems are often humorous and sly, but don’t be deceived; these are the musings of a serious poet poking and prodding the world he lives in, singing small songs, but asking big questions. This is a rewarding first collection by a poet I look forward to hearing more from.

–Mark Cox, author of four books of poetry, including Natural Causes; editor of The Memory of Water; and recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Oklahoma Book Award and The Society of Midland Authors Poetry Prize

“I only need some wind to push us along,” Justin Paige writes in Constant Traffic, some breath, some spirit, and that is precisely what we get here as we travel through a world intersected by NASA, bars, woodsmen, Venice, references to Lorca, winemakers—one never knows what traffic one will encounter. And this is the beauty and the power here as worlds whiz by, or rather, as we scoot by them so that one thing defines another, one mood gets shifted by the next poem. Indeed, it is like looking at a traffic pattern from above, filled with surprising details, but held together as a beautiful vision by a master poet.

–Richard Jackson, author of 14 books of poetry, including Out of Place (Ben Franklin Award), two books of criticism, including Dismantling Time in Contemporary Poetry (Agee Award) and two books of translation; recipient of Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellowships and five Pushcart Prizes

The tension within these quiet, Walter Mittyish poems is almost too much to bear. Each is a little adventure that could take you simply to your backyard or all the way to a new star system, though mainly these poems map the hills and valleys of the mind and heart, the places where the best things await, the ones that haven’t happened yet.

–David Kirby, author of 25 books of poetry, including his latest, Get Up, Please, essays and children’s literature; recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize and the 2016 Florida Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing