We Have Always Been Coming to This Morning

Poet and editor David Ray has this praise for Greg Kosmicki's "We have always been coming to this morning": In these poems Greg Kosmicki shares his life with-out the masks most poets wear these days. He can make us feel that nothing could be more fascinating than living in a Nebraska town and observing and experiencing realities others don't even notice, finding Inscape in what they overlook. And what riches they do overlook, as if leaving them for Greg to shine up or render with great compassion, as in 'Social Work.' Sinclair Lewis achieved a comparable artistry, but his view was soured and he couldn't wait to escape. Kosmicki sticks around and makes magic out of the hassles and quiet joys, making us wish that we observed half of our own hassles and perplexities with such clarity." Robert Bly writes that "Greg Kosmicki is an honest writer, writing at one of the worst times of our nation. He doesn't whine or feel pity for himself, but he doesn't pull back either from describing the grief he sees all around him in our half-mad country," and Hayden Carruth says, "Surely the most abused word is reality. It means almost nothing now. If you would reacquaint yourself with it, in all its glorious pain and miserable joy, read Greg Kosmicki's splendidly candid and powerful poems." Kosmicki's is a rare and intensely passionate voice; the poems are consistently forceful, surprising, and new--the way poetry should be.