A new Booklist review calls Stephen Dobyns's forthcoming The Day's Last Light Reddens the Leaves of the Copper Beech a collection of "courageous observations about the way one endures as he considers big questions about death—of his love, his friends, and himself. [Dobyns] never hides from the tragic and the honest."
Reviewer Danielle Susi notes how the collection's first poem, "Stories," sets the stage for the rest of the book. "From the very beginning of the book, the reader understands that this poem, and so many others that follow, will focus on recognizing the truth of mortality."
The second section of the book, “Sixteen Sonnets for Isabel,” is a "more direct dedication to Dobyns’s recently deceased wife."
"While this may not be a book about marriage, it is certainly about the lessons the poet has learned through marriage, which he may well be more reflective about now that his wife has passed. Sprinkled throughout the collection are a half-dozen parable poems, offering more lessons and contemplation of them. Dobyns’s brave and sincere poems will remind readers of their own humanness."
The Day's Last Light Reddens the Leaves of the Copper Beech is available for pre-order at the BOA Bookstore.
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