The Space Of Joy

John Fuller contemplates that age-old question of life versus art" "in this powerful, storytelling sequence of poems. Each work recounts the life of a noted author or artist and their fatal prioritization of art over love. It begins with Petrarch, who created great lyric poetry out of an impossible infatuation, and moves through Coleridge's self-induced guilt within domestic happiness, Matthew Arnold's disbelief in mutual love, Brahm's self-delusion, and the complexities of Wallace Stevens's marriage. Magnificently playful and thought-provoking, these poems present the conviction that while art creates beauty, it is life itself that must create the "space of joy" that art wishes to celebrate.