Poetry. IN THE ARCHIVES offers a lyrically rich, emotionally compelling cycle of poems that explores the alienation and longing we feel as we face the increased mechanization and frightening militarization of our present moment. In these formally inventive poems, Arigo demonstrates how each phrase can keep the reader alive to the reading experience as this writer explores and exposes a poetics of intimate as well as expansive vision. As the titles of many of the poem cycles suggest--"Abbreviated Inventories," "Catalogued evidence," "Tracking sites," to name a few--Arigo is interested in discerning how we organize our understanding of the world we live in, and how that understanding impacts our lives. These poems are astute listening devices, catching the moments "when songs and lightning suspend / present tenses."

Author City: PULLMAN, WA USA

Christopher Arigo's first poetry collection LIT INTERIM won the 2001-2002 Transcontinental Poetry Prize (selected by David Bromige) and was published by Pavement Saw Press (2003). His second collection IN THE ARCHIVES (2007) was released by Omnidawn Publishing. He coedits the literary journal Interim with poet Claudia Keelan and is an Assistant Professor of English at Washington State University. He is currently working on a book-length project on radical ecopoetics.

Reviews and Other Links
http://omnidawnblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/and-explosions-forced-away-hummingbirds.html