Landon Godfrey

Second-Skin Rhinestone-Spangled Nude Souffle Chiffon Gown Landon Godfrey

Poetry. Never has the sumptuous materiality of language felt more seductive than in Landon Godfrey's remarkable debut collection, SECOND-SKIN RHINESTONE-SPANGLED NUDE SOUFFLE CHIFFON GOWN. These exquisite poems are both sensually compelling and intellectually rigorous--a rare feat indeed. The iridescence of this marvelous volume continues to glow long after one has turned out the lights. Don't be without this book a moment longer--David St. John. The secret of Landon Godfrey's fresh and compelling poems seems to lie in their unexpected combination of lushness and asperity. How is it possible to be at once so lavish and so austere? Receiving a kiss, this speaker tells us, she felt 'like the earth kissed by a homesick traveler--/ splendid in my borrowed costume of dirt and air.' How delightful the finery put on in this splendid debut of a book, and how wise the poet is to let those gorgeous robes fall away, too, to the poor bare clay beneath them: in that tension lives this poet's prodigious art--Mark Doty.