Imperfect Present

Imperfect Present is a stunning book, not simply for its depth of feeling, piercing wit, and well-earned wisdom but also for the brilliant play of language, the sheer sonic pleasures of it. Whether meditations on art, mortality, social justice, what it means to be and do good, these are poems startling both in their range and clarity of vision—at once delighting and jolting the mind toward recognition and a new apprehension of the world we thought we knew. I am reminded that Sharon Dolin is a poet for our time whose necessary voice I return to again and again.

There are many ways to describe Imperfect Present, Sharon Dolin’s new collection of poems—delightful, earthy, erudite, engaging—but dazzling says it best. A master of form, Dolin offers a prismatic, often intimate, look at origins: language, country, belief, the self. Though many poems take on our worst imperfections—hatred, violence, degradation of the planet—others make room for generosity, an embrace of our failings, ‘the shattered pieces of some inconceivable whole.’ Imperfect Present is a powerful inquiry into what it means to be human, living in our present moment. As Dolin asks, ‘even in the midst of sorrow how may I—we—still summon joy?’

Sharon Dolin’s marvelous new collection, Imperfect Present, brings with it her profound lyric intelligence and elegant, eloquent wit. Her brilliantly charged language embodies those shifting tensions, those often mercurial, often intense reflections that accompany us along the paths and passages of a life. Compassionate and compelling, Dolin’s collection is, as its title suggests, truly the perfect book for our imperfect present moment.