Spirit Engine by John Donian

John Donlan’s lyric work seeks the connection between lives — not just the life of a coyote and the life of a man, or the peaceful cacophony of a pond in summer and the life of the human listener — but between the life before birth, and the life after. He reveals the wilderness to us moment by moment, while simultaneously driving us back into our own nature – a process readers, lifted by Donlan’s imagery, rhythms, and insights, can only experience as pure pleasure. Here beauty is the engine that enspirits the mind, freeing us from contemporary despair and the illusion we’ve left nature behind.

Praise for John Donlan:

“The trajectory of the poems – the music of their struggle and commitment — from Domestic Economy through to Spirit Engine, has a unity, logic, beauty, and integrity too rare in contemporary writing.” — Ken Babstock