Good Hope Road

Good Hope Road is one of those rare books of verse that combine lyricism with the momentum of narrative, a concern for dailiness with a willingness to embrace wildness. Like Joyce's Dubliners, the twelve poems of the opening sequence, "Apartments," reflect a wide panorama of contemporary urban consciousness. Dischell's subjects are wronged lovers, thwarted citizens, an idealistic veteran, bickering relations--all with their entangled, fractious alliances. In "Household Gods," the book's second section, Dischell presents dramatic monologues whose scenes are the shore, the city, and the countryside. Here are homages and elegies; poems of childhood, betrayal, and loss. Observant and compassionate, this edition of Good Hope Road reintroduces the work of a striking and powerful writer.