Equal to the natural wonder and the natural enough wonder at the wonder of that. A life without closure except that the poem insists on instances of that… It’s light and touched and no dark reason comes out of it. Only the stuff that make a spring start up in spring… There’s only resilient beauty. And no derision anywhere. Not a spot of it. This is the poetry of culture. It lets civilization sleep… Botherless daily lilies. — Alan Davies
Pat Reed
Praise for Kismet
These poems remind me of fountains: they spring from an immense source offering what they bring to the surface—light, wild images and the velocity of wit.
— Fanny Howe
With abandon… to the exiggencies of the poem under hand, for example… to the “Spain” it’s singing with (the “El Greco” it’s seeing) aplomb—or “cold as all get-out” / “hot as all get out” through the poem into the (claros) opacities & frogbound clarity of a Spring & All “northern California” afternoon. Through the course of the book, as well, tere’s the (“north African”) pleasure of Pat Reed’s writing growing by leaps & bounds.
— Robert Grenier
