Vanishing Point

The poems in this remarkable collection, like the miscellaneous objects in the museum that inspired the book’s arrangement, are as random–and as revealing–as life itself. As we turn the pages, we have a growing sense that every encounter with people, creatures, objects or events–whether personal or public, welcome or apprehensive, playful or serious–reveals more than itself: A voice keeps asking, Where am I in all this? That question soon becomes ours, as does the answer, though it remains unspoken until the book’s final poem asks the question again and, in a voice expanding to include the whole earth and its inhabitants, even the angels, proclaims the answer in the soaring last lines of a communal hymn. -Bob Longoni served as Director of the University of Arizona Poetry Center, and is the author of Woodpiles Tim Amsden’s Vanishing Point has wit and pathos, wisdom and delight. These poems show the heart of a man who cherishes life and is not afraid to open himself to the larger questions of who and why we are in this complicated world. He moves seamlessly from intimate memory to the tenderness of loving his wife, to sharing life’s simple moments, the ones that sustain us. With humor and honesty, Amsden takes us on a journey through the rooms of his life, where .. .in my center nests a sliver of grace. -Paula Sayword is the author of What Sleeps Inside and Canticle of Light and Dark