Thirty-Seven Years from the Stone

The poems of Cox's latest volume are inventive and intelligent without forsaking accessibility.

Mark Cox's "latest work showcas[es] a broad range of poetic talents—from narrative to didactic musings to a sure-handed facility with familiar conceits. Yet the amid the book's embarrassment of riches, the lyric clearly stands out as Cox's forte—incisive poems laced with quirky energy and vivid imagery, and fueled by the poet's modulated, occasionaly mannered voice. . . .the tension in Cox's perceptions is beautifully relieved by the understated music of his verse—its supple urgency and pace, its winsome wordplay and wit.

Cox proves particularly adept at evoking pathos through everyday objects. . . His sense of humor is sly, insinuating and always at the ready. . . .Poems like "Grain," a moving protest against mortality . . . will always be scarce commodities.

Taking the reader to 'a lake you can neither drown in nor drink from, / like those waterbugs who learn to worship the surface,' this new collection by Cox embodies the 20th-century poetic focus: 'no idea but in things.' . . . In poems whose subjects range from the mundane to the sublime, he offers beautifully rendered images and rhythms. . . . Recommended.

These poems are alive with people—getting by, loving, failing, making the gestures which define them. In this confident, large-hearted and enormously readable book, Cox demonstrates what might seem to be impossible: a voice can be at once tender and toughminded, passionate and casually down to earth, disillusioned and thoroughly glad to be alive. Here's a surprising, unmistakable poet offering some of the most generous and compassionate of contemporary lyrics.

Mark Cox writes with daring, humor, skill and a gnarled empathetic heart from which he has drawn these clear, shapely poems.

Ever since Smoulder I have been looking forward to a new book by Mark Cox. Thirty-Seven Years from the Stone is a splendid book, a book so rich and human and original it will help you remember why you love poetry. Mark Cox has written his way into being one of the finest poets of his generation.