These alchemical poems challenge our compulsion to categorize and pigeonhole. They inquire deeply into the passion for containment symbolized by classical Greek vessels. The poems seek to define the idea of ennobling elixirs. The image of galleys sailing on the winds and laden with Greek amphorae tied to each other by their necks haunts this collection. The poet concludes that names inevitably mislead us. He urges us to transcend them, not revel in them.

… the energy of a young poet with
the wisdom of long experience.
Edward Hirsch, Guggenheim Foundation

Djelloul Marbrook was born in Algiers and grew up in New York. He served in the U.S. Navy and for many years was a newspaper reporter and editor (Providence Journal, Elmira Star-Gazette, Baltimore Sun, Winston-Salem Journal, Washington Star, among others). His awards include the Wick Poetry Prize (2007), the Literal Latt fiction prize (2008), and the International Book Award in Poetry (2010). His poetry has been published in many journals, including American Poetry Review, Barrow Street, Taos Poetry Journal, Orbis (UK), Le Zaporogue (Denmark), Oberon, The Same, Reed, Fledgling Rag, Poets Against the War and Poemeleon. He lives in New York’s mid-Hudson Valley with his wife Marilyn and maintains a lively presence on Facebook, Twitter and at djelloulmarbrook.com.