Left-Handed Wolf

Adam Day’s Left-Handed Wolf is a set of short poems, ranging from two to seventeen lines, written in the long wake of Issa and Basho, which manages to surprise at every turn. Day has a good ear, but these are not 'pretty' poems. Instead they refresh perception. Here we find ourselves treading the 'Mahogany water / of the mare’s dead eye.' ~Rae Armantrout, author of Versed, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

In Left-Handed Wolf, Adam Day has crafted lines of brevity and precision without the least hint of preciousness; instead, the reader finds sharp juxtapositions of language, imagery, and sound. These are not-quite-haiku hewn from the materials of our soiled world. Beauty exists, but it’s smudged, sullied, and sometimes horrific. In this raw, engaging, gorgeously observed collection, Day explores the compromised beauty of our world. ~Laura Sims, author of Staying Alive

Day navigates the tensions between breadth and precision, and between the historical and the
personal, in his excellent debut collection. Through a range of forms, he creates a liminal space
wherein references to strange historical anecdotes share a stage with more introspective and personal
utterances. Through this balancing act, what seems remote becomes highly accessible and
mysteriously familiar…In the process of weaving his materials together, he draws his readers into a
sort of collective memory, thus fostering a sense of community…Day masterfully conjoins the still life
with the moving landscape, the expansive with the infinitesimal…This act of cracking and reassembling
is a constant struggle, but there’s merit in the struggle itself.

~Publishers Weekly