This smart, lyrical collection explores the dangers of a world so complex that no single consciousness may grasp it--however much the attempt must be made. Following historical and imagined figures as they encounter specific moments or objects (such as Thomas Hariot in the Ameri-can Wilderness of the late 16th century), the poems attempt to record the unraveling of the safe and singular into a multiplicity of unknowns. Impelled by metaphor and lilting repetition, North True South Bright seeks a sense of the world, and ultimately, a sense of the Infinite.

Hariot's Round
I know, to entice, to convince, I must sing
Your ear inside stone, must sing
Gold bitten and true, the corn kernel, one seed,
I must plant one gold seed in your mouth with my lips.
Raleigh says: the Queen known my name. The Crown
Of a woodpecker is ruby, but shy.
Inhabitants adorn themselves with feathers, and feathers
Bright on arrow ends. Bow--before a Queen. Bend closed my book.
The page is deaf that turns back to look at what it found.

"In North True South Bright, Dan Beachy-Quick proves the compass of his eye to be perfectly exact, precisely true. These poems are finely made contemporaries of sunlight. And, like sunlight, their history is Now."--Donald Revell