All the Possible Bodies - Paperback

by Iain Haley Pollock (Author)

Memory, story, impressions, witness, culpability, our very humanness course through this book and strip us, via our interaction, of pretense. The poems are language- and image-driven narratives that present us with deep and abiding love, a need for orienting oneself, for respecting the process of orientation. They also dwell in the instantaneous shifts, the sudden changes that simultaneously jar and reassure us. The dreamy realism of the work grounds. Readers are confronted with the unpredictable inertia of life wherein we are challenged daily to find comfort while constantly orienting ourselves. The messiness and complexities of life are often what can bring the greatest joys. There is nakedness, stripping down of pretense, and a love for the primal, emotionally driven self. Some favorite poems are "Liver of Sulfur," "whatever wilderness contained there," "Arrival: Troy, New York," and the final poem in the collection.

Author Biography

Iain Haley Pollock is the author of three poetry collections, Spit Back a Boy (2011), Ghost, Like a Place (Alice James, 2018), and All the Possible Bodies (Alice James, 2025). His poems have appeared in publications ranging from American Poetry Review to The New York Times Magazine. Pollock has received several honors for his work including the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, a 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in Poetry, the Bim Ramke Prize for Poetry from Denver Quarterly, and a nomination for an NAACP Image Award. He serves as Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Manhattanville University in Purchase, NY.