Joseph Hutchison’s BED OF COALS is a poetic sequence that tells a story of emotional crisis and recovery at the unsparing hand of Eros. Rooted in transgression, the poems honor the powerful psychic energies at work in the book’s tragicomical hero, whose name is Vander Meer. They trace his journey toward balance and wholeness in ways that reflect his struggle: shifting points of view, mercurial mood-swings, now layered and allusive, now plain as a single plucked guitar string. It is a highly crafted but deeply human book, a book for readers who appreciate the strange richness of our inner lives.