To See the Sound

"There's magic in these pages -- a glittering eye carefully tuned to transporting rhythms, resonant moments, repeated song -- choruses wide and deep enough to say Life! and Mystery! all at once." -- Naomi Shihab Nye

This is an example of what some call "new formalism." Many poems are in meter, and historical forms like the villanelle and sonnet appear. However, it is not a formalism born of conservatism: the traditional forms are explored lovingly but with little romantic attachment. One driver of Degher's formalism seems to be his awareness of poetry's historical connections to song, his commitment to maintaining poetry's aural and oral foundations - on keeping music in the poem. This should come as no surprise, since he's also a lifelong singer-songwriter and musician.

To See the Sound explores our idealistic impulses, probing the shifting ways we see the world, and ourselves in it. Most of the poems in the collection were written when Degher was an expat living in Sweden, and many test our constructions of national and ethnic identity, which to Degher seem increasingly intangible.

"There is deep wisdom and joy to be found in Darius Degher's latest collection, To See the Sound. In poems that balance elegant, well-crafted lines with the bite of a contemporary and original voice, Degher stuns the reader poem after poem with a formalism that, as the speaker hopes for in 'In the City Lights Bookstore, ' is 'holy and uncarved.' Perhaps most striking is the poet's deft examination of elusive issues such as time and mutability. For instance, in 'Fiftieth Summer, ' the speaker desires to 'make something that doubles and evolves / to do something that makes its meaning mean, ' and that is exactly what this collection does, speaking to the deep life of the individual and change we both fear and need. I cannot recommend this book highly enough." -- Rob Griffith (former co-editor of Measure magazine)

"Darius Degher's poems adroitly work between the old and the new. Here we have the ancient magic of metaphor-making combined with a richly musical handling of traditional meter. However, Degher's ear and eye are tuned to the imagery, speech, and problems of now, and he understands the poet's call to speak to his age and does so with great sensitivity and precision. This is a unique voice and an impressive collection. See it and hear it and rejoice." -- Paul Bone (former co-editor of Measure magazine)

"Though many of the poems in To See the Sound are based on personal experience, there is nothing self-regarding in Darius Degher's work. Here is a poet alive to the richness of the contemporary world and the ironies of his place within it. Evocative, earthy and humane, these personal narratives form bright eddies in the flow of historical time -- a movement that his work both recognizes and resists, insisting on the living moment and its sense of connection. This is an eclectic and wise collection, revealing a fluid and subtle sense of form built from the cross-rhythms of language and meaning." -- Graham Mort (Poet and author)