Nicholas Christopher's first book of poetry, On Tour with Rita, established
him as a major poet of his generation. This second collection delivers on all
the promise of the first. Crafted with a masterly elegance and brilliance that
recall the work of John Ashbery or James Merrill, A Short History of the Island
of Butterflies displays a lush and vivid imagery that nonetheless never appears
indulged in for its own sake. Although most of these poems are what one would
properly call lyric, a surprising number display a dramatic and narrative tension
that is rare among lyric poets, and others express a vision that is both dark
and magical. Yet Christopher's voice is original and versatile -- he is as
at home with the stark urban landscape as he is with the sunny Mediterranean
-- and with this collection it takes on a truly distinctive edge.
"How exciting to watch the new poet grow into himself, becoming a necessary
one...'The erotic memory is universal truth,' as Mr. Christopher tells us,
and when we see it, hear it in so sustained a voice, so euphoric a vision,
we are fulfilled. I cherish this radiant threshold the poet has now crossed."
--Richard Howard
"Mr. Christopher has established himself as a major poet of his generation,
and he strikes me as eminently one of the most gifted."
--Anthony Hecht
"Nicholas Christopher has a shrewd eye to Nature and another to culture,
his ears are finely attuned to nuance, and his poems are not too timid to think.
I have had a good deal of pleasure from A Short History, and admire very much
his skill at keeping the argument or narrative coherent while it absorbs so
much of what Stevens called 'the dreadful sundry of this world."
--Howard Nemerov
"His second sight revises the landscape with poetic imagination."
--Booklist