Clover's Log
A thematic collection following a persona introduced in Cope’s first volume of poetry, In Killdeer's Field. Though there are indeed lighter as well as profoundly spiritual moments, Clover’s Log follows by and large a descent into pain, separation, absurdity, addiction, and madness. Serious poetry, to be sure, for the serious and the seriously literary.
Reviews for Clover's Log
Michelle Boisseau --
“In Steven Cope's Clover's Log we hear a voice of ancient newness. Cope forges the pastoral tradition in the fires of the contemporary idiom so that his fields and trees, streams and shadows shimmer with the familiar strangeness of legend. The book rings with an iron elementalism and flinty nerve that captivates.”
Joe Survant--
"Clover's Log, authentic to its core, is a lovely elegy for childhood, love, family, animals, land, and self. Occasionally its landscape is lit by streaks of violence, and by foxfire, but always by the soothing psalmic voice of the poet "singing oh---/like a prodigy."
Richard Taylor--
"The best poems are records of the mind grappling with itself---with love, with mood, with puzzling out the lineaments of the world. Clover's Log is filled with such poems---passionate, unsparingly honest---episodes of the heart. The language is spare and gleaming. The result of this combination is a very strong collection from a seasoned poet. "
From Clover's Log
Night Song
Now when all the green men
are hidden in trees,
and the silver sun of the moon
has banked deep into a storm,
we come, you and I, impoverished, frail,
to replenish ourselves.
We drink the blown leaves
and suck the hailed corn, turning, twirling,
mounting wood and stone, wet skin of the earth:
we are alive in such a world.
It is the dark flower in your hair,
the dirt in my nails.
© 2004, 97 pages, softcover; This book is available from Amazon or directly from the publisher. To inquire about ordering a copy signed by the author, please e-mail info@stevenrcope.com