The Pre-Eternity of the World

About Christopher Buckley, the late poet Peter Everwine writes, 'I don't think that I know of another poet who has such vertical range and depth' Buckley manages to have one foot in the physical muck and tenderness of the world and the other foot planted among the stars and galaxies of the universe.' Buckley's newest collection, Pre-Eternity of the World, is persistently the kind of poetry Everwine describes. In the title poem, Buckley describes pre-eternity as 'loads of quantum confetti / ad infinitum . . . under the floorboards / of time . . . . Go figure.'

But, is this a simple dismissal, or is the poet asking the reader to calculate the incalculable? He asks, 'Did our parents fight WW II / just so we could go to double features / on Saturday,' watch black and white television, or 'lie on a hill after school / letting our imaginations run off / with cloud formations? That's about it.' These sorts of questions, cynical as they might be, are surprising and liberating, and he writes of intelligent design, of vacillation, and of science and math; the poet is 'called on' to stand 'bewildered.' Such is the beauty of Buckley's poetry, with 'Nothing but time to stop me / thinking.'