In Praise of Spirits and Gnats

A mindful observer of nature and the inner life, Carol Louise Munn writes with delicate intelligence and nuanced honesty of all that matters most: love, loss, grief, home. Her beautifully lucid poems illuminate the sensual world in lines at once precise and expansive. Whether transcendently mystical, imbued with soul, or firmly embodied, her textured meditations offer a rare combination of clarity and depth, grit and vulnerability. There are heartfelt expressions of love – “I never wish to stand on the earth without you…” and brave realizations of loss– an “understanding that I /must live with darkness.” Like an exquisitely honed memoir, these moving poems will engage and enchant you. They shimmer with reticence and quietly celebrate the miracle of being alive.

—Alice Fulton

Alice Fulton is the author of ten books in a wide range of genres, including most recently Coloratura On A Silence Found In Many Expressive Systems (W.W. Norton), a poetry collection. A recipient of many fellowships and awards including a MacArthur and a Guggenheim, she is the Ann S. Bowers Professor of English at Cornell University.

Spirits and Gnats, the debut collection by Carol Louise Munn, evokes the archetypal sacred and profane in the rural landscape of East Texas. These keen and observant poems, fueled by love of the world around us, show us “what we only half-know we know.” Following in the tradition of Dickinson and Bishop, Munn’s vigilant eye begins in reality and transports us beyond it. There is an urgency in these poems that is also the awareness of how close death is to each of us. Through this poet’s lens, we find ourselves able to look into the depths of mystery itself.

—Robin Reagler

Robin Reagler is the author of the poetry collections The Always, Night Is This Anyway, and Into The The. She chaired the AWP Board of Trustees and LitNet during the decades she served as Executive Director of Writers in the Schools. Currently, she serves as the Director of the Honors College at Houston City College.