"If we cross the wilderness of revery with DaVinci urging young painters to study the cracks in walls, we arrive at the fabulous classicism of unforgettable poems in Stan Mir's new book, The Lacustrine Suite. Here, the things human are finally drawn against a completely surprising lyricism. This is a great collection of poems." - Norman Dubie

"Dear Mirror, in The Lacustrine Suite, all the ships side with their shadows. This is the silhouette the stars hunt. Trace the happy apocalypse of Stan Mir's mouth, a loophole at the end of the cul-de-sac of speech. This is the lake you have waded into. Problem songs preserved from allegory's fortress. Asterisks then ash. Gauze fallen from your gills." -- Eric Baus

"Stan, at the Keith Waldrop reading, I was struck by how similar the work was to yours. Something in the phrasing. You both have a fearlessness in the riff. I want to say something about Frank Zappa. But I know nothing about Frank Zappa. But what you do, I think, is make genuinely original music in, often, short, declarative lines. Waldrop read the last poem in Transcendental Studies about the angel statues at Swan Point in Providence (you been?). How does he start? "Angels go--" You would do something like that. Gorgeous. So simple. Monumental in its simplicity and funneling some great power. I don't know...it's just charged, you know." -- Brandon Som

The Invention Has Too Many Faces

Laced by dirt, a dark gown
without buttons. I have shovelled
enough. Hands. White mice. The car
now gone into plumes. It is Monday

rain will not share confetti.
The robot's arm knocks my foot
into the hole. A struggle, a push.
A barrage of faces backward.

I am thief-dressed and thin.
Each face mirrors a voice
in the night. I wish to be

bird-hung from the branches, above
the electric arms that push.

Stan Mir was raised in Rochester, NY. He is the author of two chapbooks published by JR Vansant, Flight Patterns and Test Patterns. His work has also appeared in Fascicle, Ixnay, LVNG, and The Poker. Currently he lives in Philadelphia.