Perennial Fields

Beyond the language of Dan Darrah’s poetry – a language filled with searching, wondering, reflecting – lies the language of bodies. The poems collected in Perennial Fields are filled with people. Mostly nameless save for a few, the citizens of Darrah’s work are complicated yet realized and represented economically, as if to imply that the reader knows them so well, maybe even is them, that they don’t need any explanation at all. Some spread marmalade amidst bouts of crying, some drop bags of groceries, some flick bugs, but everyone does this with, to, or for someone else. All of these actions lead to connection, or a desire for it. Darrah’s poems are successful meditations on a universal personal: how do we live with ourselves and with others?

-Ned Russin

5 x 7
40 pages
Perfect bound
Velvet laminate finish
/300