Les Tres Riches Heures: Poems

The poems in The Tres Riches Heures probe what is shown and, just as interesting, what is not shown in these late medieval miniatures - what is merely suggested or even left out. With precise, vivid detail they explore the complex sweetness and nostalgia along with the grim realities for peasants and the coming collapse of the feudal order. Tony Whedon takes us inside and back out for the long view of an era at the cusp of our modern world.-David Cavanagh, author of Straddle and Cycling in Plato’s Cave**In these twelve poems Tony Whedon, along with the Limbourg brothers of the early 15th century, gives us a world-one both bounded and boundless. Whedon’s imaginative associations are as dazzling as the colors of the miniatures themselves. Both the elegant lightness and the earthiness of the Limbourgs’ artistry are reflected in these poems. Beyond brocaded nobility, beyond agrarian quaintness, the richness of Whedon’s poetry can convince you that the world of the paintings is one in which we still live.-Judith Yarnall, Author of The Transformations of Circe