“Huddle is a source of light in an often gray world.”—Booklist
“[Huddle’s poetry is] luminous and majestic.”— Philip Deaver, The Southern Review
An account of spiritual survival through the practice of literary art, the poems in David Huddle’s eighth collection, Dream Sender, move among a variety of poetic forms and voices. Here, a bear wonders why he could not have been a raccoon, a bird, or a meadow; and a five-year-old thrills to the forbidden taste of whiskey as he eavesdrops on his parents’ after-dinner conversation. By turns outrageous and pragmatic, Huddle’s poems acknowledge the powerful and disturbing currents of the contemporary world as they also explore the comfort and familiarity we find there.
Huddle’s poems illuminate the nature of relationships between family, friends, and even animals, celebrating their shortcomings, embarrassments, and eccentricities. At once frank and compassionate, Dream Sender finds both humor and poignancy in human imperfections.
David Huddle teaches at the Bread Loaf School of English and the Rainier Writing Workshop. He is the author of over twenty novels, short-story collections, and volumes of poetry. His fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in the American Scholar, Esquire, Harper’s, the New Yorker, Poetry, Shenandoah, and elsewhere. His recent books include Dream Sender, a poetry collection, and My Immaculate Assassin, a novel.
