Repast

"Powell's long, stuttering line helps his extravagant imagination encompass the practical troubles long illness entails. No accessible poet of his generation is half as original, and no poet as original is this accessible. With his open-secret sexiness, his confident collage effects, and his grave subjects, Powell could reach far beyond the segmented audiences most poets now expect: poems like his

"A triptych of strangely beautiful poems kindled by the poet's riposte to the AIDS pandemic. Powell has developed an unmistakable style, the world of which allows him to be as literal or transformative--and as narrative or associative--as he needs to be."

"Powell's work shows canonical influence--Williams, cummings, H. D., and Eliot most notably--and yet maintains its own predominant voice, that of a truth teller who metes out accuracy with a fierce but well-spoken intelligence."