Still In Soil

Still in Soil explores the body and its cycles to pull together the shards of life by detailing the physical world with deft particulars in lush, dense and rich poems. Throughout, Kyle Torke affirms family life, describing "the small offices of love" such as clean dishes or pieces of cut fruit. Ordinary experiences like taking sons to a soccer field to fly airplanes sustain individual life by linking it to the larger natural world. What other poet "knowing how dark passages require touch" has frozen a dead guinea pig to teach his sons about death? Providing perspective, "memory is the bullet" which penetrates the collection with a dark humor to make it vivid and hard edged. United throughout by passion and an intelligent perceptive mind, the collection reminds us that in spite of family, personal connections, each person is finally alone and left with desires that are not to be fulfilled in this world. Ultimately, however, "the movement of green is the grass bending for spring." The intense and compelling poems in Still in Soil will grab hold first of your mind, then remain in the recesses of your heart. Vivian Shipley, four time Pulitzer Prize nominee, editor of Connecticut Review, Distinguished professor at Connecticut State University, and author of twelve collections of poetry.