The Face of It

Roger Langley's poems explore perception. They take their bearings from forms as diverse as Renaissance hermeticism, a Greek vase, Rauschenberg's painting, Bottom's dream, a green beetle. Here the world may chime, like a building by Palladio, or disappear on a parting wave as in a film by Bergman. Surprise and truth come together. Things are both ordinary and vivid, distinct and universal. Langley's poems take delight in the sound and sense of language: for him, etymology can be revelation. In the interplay of word and object, each poem attempts an epiphany.