Vestiges

“If only words were salt—soluble, savory, vital, electric,” Eric Pankey writes in “Variations on Hadrian’s Animula,” one of many virtuosic works in Vestiges: Notes, Responses, and Essays 1988 – 2018. In this diverse collection of lyrical prose, Pankey assays his personal-poetic history with passion, brilliance, and grace. He considers the works of many great poets—Dickinson, Stevens, Donne, Hopkins, Merwin, Justice, Levis, and Lorca, to name just a few—invoking them as teachers and guides. As mu