Gold Passage

"In the moment at the beginning of language words were more than magical, naming things into existence. A world in duress needs new poetry whose structures and intentions allow a humanizing. I found the poems in Iris Dunkle's Gold Passage to be as necessary as those original pronouncements. Musical and delicate, this work comforts me with its flashes of knowledge that feel the same time ancient and utterly new."

-Kazim Ali

"One of the ancient symbols of poetry is Adam naming the animals of Eden--first connecting words with the world. Iris Jamahl Dunkle's Gold Passage pursues this Edenic mission. The vibrant gesture of her poetry is to give names to the shifting images of existence - things as concrete as a bird or a bobcat or as mysterious as the weight of memory and the invisible energy of love."

--Dana Gioia

"...I envy the east with which Dunkle mixes mythology and modernity, and love best how in her short meditative nature poems she weaves traces of the domestic life. When I set aside my favorite poems to cite here, I found myself dog-earing every poem. Gold Passage is authentic, lyrical and unforgettable."

-Jane Shore.