Self-Portrait with Expletives, by Kevin Clark

Selected by Martha Collins as Winner of the 2010 Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Prize "Moving seamlessly between the sixties-to-mid-seventies and the present, between a sensuously lived life and a deep sense of mortality, Kevin Cark's poems perform the magic his passion dictates and his intelligence won't quite allow: an "open / closure, the kind that improvs its own end- / lessness." Lush with detail, rich with wisdom, filled with unforgettable people and held together with masterful syntax, these poems raise narrative poetry to a breathtaking new level of pleasure." —Martha Collins