Rest of the Way

Tom Laughlin takes us outdoors in poetry that brims with the natural elements-we are immersed in New England landscapes with a town green, a mistress moon, snowy woods lined with elfin ski tracks, and swimmable water in every form, which conjures joy and jazz, a Great White, and a night-time pipe-smoking fisherman. Haunting the collection, like a familiar ache, is a wounded and wounding father. Death and tragedy slip in around tender stories of swimming a grasshopper to safety, climbing pencil pines, and James Wright's hammock. Laughlin's collection invites us to"[bob] in a universe of stars" as we ponder 'the rest of the way.'

--Mary Buchinger, author of e i n f ü h l u n g/in feeling and president of the New England Poetry Club