Spirit Spout

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Devon Balwit's Spirit Spout - a poetic vision directly engaging with Melville's Moby-Dick; or, The Whale - is an eschatological tour de force. The poet practices an intertextual jouissance showcasing singular gifts for sound and image. We encounter "the thrown gauntlet // the poking prod of the devil's own advocate"; there is salt, wind, brine and ocean; Melville as god, as demon; Melville in the throes of creation and also grieving. Ishmael, Ahab, and Queequeg beckon. Both travelogue and existential reckoning with life, there is a painterly attention to the physical, to the body; there is a grappling with sociology and philosophy: "Our thinking // always butting up against the ribs / of the paradigms we travel in." Balwit's powers are on full display - this book's spirit is deep and wide. - Charles Kell, author of Ishmael Mask