The listening chamber

Winner of the seventh annual Arkansas Poetry Award, William Aberg presents in The Listening Chamber a gallery of poetic forms, from short free-verse lyrics and crafted prose poems to original forms skillfully matched with their subjects. He writes comfortably of cats or derringers, the idylls of childhood, or of patients in mental hospitals. Throughout his poetry there runs a proletarian strain of dissatisfaction, an unrest coupled with dexterous wit and a remarkable sense of wonder. Convincingly, he populates these poems with farm workers, romantics, fugitives, lovers, beeches, elms, and constellations. With influences as wide ranging as William Stafford, Miklos Radnoti, and Rene Magritte, Aberg has fashioned a first collection in which every poem is a unique and haunting experience.