"James Bradley Wells's volume of poems is a meditation through Midwestern rural settings. Guiding him is biblical and classical story. We hear a skilled wordsmith's Frostian meditation as he bicycles about his Promised Land, Canaan and Vergilian terrains, and pedals around a family Missouri farm, an Indiana or Kentucky backyard, New York's Upper West Side, and the Rome studio of Fellini's Satyricon. We overhear talk about his grandfather's land projects and Vergil's Eclogues and Georgics, tune in to Marsilio Ficino's astrology determining our medical 'humors,' and glimpse the medieval Cloud of Unknowing. Throughout this carefully constructed romp, on bike or not, Wells is close to the land, his deep companion. As the poet rambles through mystic vision and reveals farm and tombstone incident, there lives the cry of the skeptic philosopher poet Lucretius. An astonishing achievement."—Willis Barnstone, author of The Gnostic Bible: The Restored New Testament, and Stickball on 88th Street
About the Author
James Bradley Wells is a poet, translator, and critic. He has published a study of ancient Greek lyric poetics, Pindar's Verbal Art. Wells teaches classical studies at DePauw University and lives in Bloomington, Indiana.
November 2013