Oval

Poetry. David Till has produced in OVAL a collection that encompasses the full circle of experience…. The 58 poems take a wide range of forms and lengths, including everything from the expressionistic, fragmentary ABOUT TROUT (“…Go stardust / One goes off hot inside / yr dream hand’), to the joyous occasional piece TWO POEMS FOR THEIR WEDDING: ("I could say: dogwood are like moonlight, / or like wedding gowns in the dark church; / but to me, / they are cold banks of snow in the mountains…‘ The disparate quality of the poems is offset by Till’s consistently gentle, grounded sensibility….)–Maria Browning, THE NASHVILLE SCENE. Whether Till is imagining the bitter heart of a bruised apple (a quarter note alone / at the lake’s edge), or writing of the loneliness of time’s passing (home / where everything you see shines with absence / where you weep for your father’s eyes, the starry / nights of love, your son’s blond hair), he presents the life he has seen and lived in a plain-spoken vocabulary and with an unaffected voice. This collection sings with a quiet enthusiasm for the natural world. David Till is emeritus professor of English at Austin Peay State University, where he has taught poetry and literature since 1971.