Overview
The poems in this collection span the 40 years in which Geoff Rips has undertaken a deeply personal attempt to understand the mystery of things. The pieces parallel his interest in the greater world and burrow deep inside his own psyche in the attempt to find meaning. His poems include the pantheon of subjects embraced by poets through the ages—life, death, love, and family—and they discuss the natural world and the material world, reality TV shows, looking for work, traffic, the lives of window washers and hot dog vendors, the wetlands, and pelicans, plovers, and dolphins. This is the whole of life, seen by looking closely at its parts.
Reviews
"The poems of Geoff Rips sing and soar, embodying the grit of hard corners, rough spots, disaffections, twists and turns of shadow and loss, as elegantly and fully as the gifted grace of any day. Something in the perfect cadence of his musical lines, his instinct for images, pulls us right in—nothing is too much, everything perfectly paced, held, weighed. Each breath more precious or distinctly shaped, after reading. This is poetry that helps life feel more possible." —Naomi Shihab Nye, chancellor, Academy of American Poets, and author, 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East
"Let’s say it up front: Geoff Rips has a big voice and with it a mastery of line and a precise sense of imagery. In poem after poem the portions of the world he gives us are vividly presented in phrases and lines that connect us with Rips’s continuing concerns: 'people on fire inside.' . . . Having mastered his craft, he shows us how many things good storytellers juggle. Then consider who he is: prize-winning novelist, master journalist, and richly rewarding poet. This is a work that sings." —James Hoggard, former president, Texas Institute of Letters, and author, Triangles of Light: The Edward Hopper Poems
"Geoff Rips is a writer’s writer. He is a novelist, a journalist, speech writer, grant writer, script writer and, now, with the publication of The Calculus of Falling Bodies, we are presented with his first poetry collection. Inspired by nature, work and politics, and with his family as his muse, it is a fine debut." —Michelle Newby, texasbooklover.com
Author Biography
Geoff Rips is a journalist and a poet who works for Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid. He is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters and the PEN American Center, a former editor of the Texas Observer, and a former Soros Open Society Institute fellow. He worked as the Freedom-to-Write Committee coordinator for the PEN American Center and was the principal author of its report, UnAmerican Activities. His 2008 novel, The Truth, received the Associated Writing Program Award. He lives in Austin, Texas.
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