There is No Finished World

In poems that are relentlessly introspective yet never trivial, Corey delves into human experience at its most potent moments and shows us that the large questions are best considered within the context of the most minute details. When, as an editor and sitting in a hospital keeping a death watch, he addresses a poet whose poem he has rejected because it doesn’t rise to the emotional level of the situation, he says, I’m sure/ you’re thinking this private critique unfair,/ and you’d be right to be upset, except/ that you’d be wrong. This place, right here, is where/ we always meet: Beatrice with her chart/ devoid of final blessings, you and I/ searching for the words that nail sensation to the sky.