Answer to Blue

A masterful new collection by award-winning poet Russell Thornton.In Greek Fire, one of the poems in Russell Thornton s astonishing new collection, the central image is of fire burning through water: water is a bridge / for a fire to come into the world. This image also illuminates the driving force that animates the poems in Answer to Blue. The stillness and quiet depth characteristic of Thornton s poetry are here shot through with an irresistible vitality, a flame of mythic resonance.The past, both ancient and recent, exerts a gravitational pull throughout the collection, with Greek myths, family histories and biblical passages unearthed and examined, forgotten and returned to, giving way in a cyclical rhythm to the transient presence of young children, often caught flitting away just at the edge of vision. With a clarity that pierces through the mist of daily routine, Thornton gives attention to transitional states, pausing at the often rushed-through moments of change, and also examines the phenomenon of perception itself.This collection s response to D.H. Lawrence s question Oh what in you can answer to this blueness? is both an answer and a challenge, an achievement of beauty that contains the seed of something more enduring and sacred.