Going Down, Friend by David James

“‘Don’t read my poems,’ says one of the poems in David James’ new collection. But don’t listen to it!  If you didn’t read these poems, you’d miss all the delicious ‘lies, dreams, wishes’ that are found here. And you’d miss a wise man recognizing that the birds are ‘a little harder to hear’ and the moon is ‘inching closer.’  Yes, a wise man who, as he ages, understands ‘how softly the light shines/in the window, how every desire sails away in the wind.’  Everyone who doesn’t read these poems will miss that moon!  I feel sorry for them.”

–Keith Taylor, author of sixteen books including The Bird-while

“With a clear voice and a heart full of awe, David James brings us a world where falling leaves might ‘call your name as they hit the ground’ and where ‘the heart wanders free in the rain.’ Our guide to these poems takes a hard look at love, death, aging and nature and offers the reader not comfort, but astonishment.  This is a book of powerfully human poems, resilience and wonder.”

–Matthew Olzmann, author of Mezzanines and Contradictions in the Design