This new collection brings together three central elements in the poetry and prose of David Grubb. There is the world of surreal identities, of wonders, disturbances, angels, fire sermons and celebrations where animals and people speak with both words and silences. There is the unfinished business of growing up in a strict religious household and seeking meanings beyond rituals and texts. In the third section of the book Albania, Bosnia and other locations create a world where nothing is certain, the past provides constant challenges and distant voices call. The darkness is broken by stars.
Throughout the book there are ordinary people facing the extraordinary and variations of identity; James Agee and Walker Evans reporting the images of poverty, Christopher Smart hauling his hardships, Emily Dickinson in a radiance, people from Porlock, Gogol and the horse dream doctor and the pig man, poets and ghosts expressed with a distinct compassion and sensitivity and a wide range of styles.
The Man Who Spoke To Owls provides a rich and radiant stream of propositions and identities, a way of reaching beyond.