An Opening in the Vertical World

Most of the poems in An Opening in the Vertical World, Roger Greenwald’s fourth collection, emerge from travel in northern Europe, with vivid evocations growing more meditative as the book proceeds. Encounters with music or visual art appear throughout, and the book closes with a poem inspired by modern dance. In short lyric poems but especially in longer pieces, Greenwald braids narrative, idea, and emotional import into a musical structure carried by the voice, in which rhythm, sound patterns, and intonation convey much of the feeling.

At the top you are a spur

on the backbone of the mountain,

divide the beating city

from the random moor.

Everything’s alive, don’t worry.

— from “The Voice”

“An Opening in the Vertical World offers us poems of a sustained interiority. Here, a highly intelligent, often lonely observer is attuned to the uncertainties of travel, sex, and history. For years, I have loved and admired Roger Greenwald’s poems, and this collection is remarkable for its wit, nuanced self-knowledge, and great technical dexterity.” — Kevin Prufer

“Roger Greenwald writes poems from a luminous distance, at once an alien in his world and a subtle correspondent, full of news of feelings, images, ideas. His poetry only gets better and better: the language icy and crisp, palpable. I’ve read this latest collection with excitement and gratitude.” — Jay Parini