Easy Guide to the Queen's Gambit

Conscious and Verbal is full of stories: political stories as in the harrowing 'At the Swamping of Categories'; love stories, epithalamiums and celebrations; curious 'Sound Bites'; and the wonderfully fluid rhythmic surprise of poems such as 'Music to Me is Like Days'. The story behind the title poem has to do with the very nearly fatal illness of the poet. When he was declared 'conscious and verbal' it was clear that he would survive, and the work he has produced since then has been described as 'posthumous', illuminated by various previously unseen and wonderfully shimmering lights. He has always had a vision of how things are; now he sees how they ought to be.