To Those Born Later

To read Ken Fontenot is to travel, deeply, inside a truly original mind and vision, inside music, inside the small shining corners of the days, through radiant curiosity and questioning. His rich memory helps revive your own. Mysteriously, you too feel in better tune. I think his many gifts center in some luminous instinct for balance and image, for solitude and society-"Chairs face each other/the way employees do, but have nothing to talk about" or "I feel I need company"-his poems are terrific, generous company in any season of life.

-Naomi Shihab Nye