The long experience of love

As its title suggests, The Long Experience of Love is, before all else, a book of love poems. Whether addressed to a specific person or evoking a memory, landscape, or the spirit of a painting, the poems honor both the presence of love and its loss. Moore writes of the common losses by which we know our lives: the loss of family, the friends who leave us, the desires that don't come to pass. Moore's tone is often elegiac, but it is also often ecstatic. He tells his secrets, names his pain without self-pity. These poems offer the delight of discovering that the most surprising of revelations may be sprung, the most subtle of effects achieved, by language that is immediate and accessible. The poet's voice is easy, the music as natural as breathing.