Heaven

May 18, 2015
Phillips (The Ground), in his second collection, deals in illusions, highlighting the hidden wonders he finds within the world. In measured poems that echo conversations one might have in a museum, Phillips presents scenes that build to final-line revelations. Along the way, he mulls various aspects of the concept of heaven—the realness of it, the mutations of it. Phillips opens in “Perpetual peace. Perpetual light,” yet “it all seems graffiti.” In order to investigate more deeply, he analyzes scenes from Dante and Homer, even turning to artist Chuck Close, a fellow illusionist. Close’s paintings appear to be hyperrealistic portraits from far away, but when seen up close, they disintegrate into small dots and blobs of dissonant color, as if Close were painting the atoms of his subjects. In his quest to see beyond the visible into the atoms of the world, Phillips has a transformative experience in viewing one of Close’s paintings. The poet also discovers that it is possible for people to find heaven in each other, and that heaven always shifts and changes; it is indefinable. Phillips is awestruck by that ambiguity, and though he doesn’t see the pearly gates in his source material, he revels in the search.

June 1, 2015
As a translator, a poet, and the author of a scholarly work, When Blackness Rhymes with Blackness (2010), Phillips demonstrates extraordinary range and remarkable acuity. His second poetry collection delivers a loosely linked series of poems that allude to one another, but the result is less like a concept album than a series of inventive riffs on a common theme: the heavens and the great beyond, which is in stark opposition to, or perhaps complements, the title of his debut collection, The Ground (2012). Phillips plays with traditional forms and writes verse rich with clever introspection (as he alludes to the rowan tree found in Homer's Odyssey), aglow with astral imaginings (the radiant malaise of Ursa Minor in black stellate subheaven ), lush with architectural detail ( plum and pear-green / Parapets, pomegranate balustrades ), and filled with playful, rhyming narratives ( A gray scholar near the end of his talk / Pauses, turns hazel in the maze of his thoughts ). Consistently smart and clearly talented, Phillips is one to read now and to watch for in the future.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)