Only Here, Between

Eugene Richie's love poems for his wife of nearly fifty years are collected here, in a beautiful edition with a cover by Win Knowlton, designed by Brian Brunius, and published by Gnosis Press. With a title inspired by an Elizabeth Bishop line, ONLY HERE, BETWEEN, like Richie's earlier book ISLAND LIGHT, offers poems that "are hopeful in the face of myriad threats. And graceful in a world where grace is not often prized," as James Tate wrote. John Ashbery said that Richie's "poetry enchants even as it fixes the spinning atoms that are what we know of our time here . . . all suspended and made memorable in the even gaze of love." And, as Ann Lauterbach notes, "Eugene Richie knows how to ask the right questions, and to answer them 'in a language we call home.'"

"With ONLY HERE, BETWEEN, Eugene Richie claims the role of the beloved's heroic witness and ardent champion. Timeless it is because it takes its time as if there is all the time in the world. With sweetness and kindness, Richie practices poetry's regard for loving our carnality. These poems are precise with poetry's precision; they are lush and voluptuous. Richie sets high standards by virtue of his mastery of poetry and his understanding of devotion."--Dara Barrois/Dixon

"Where have all the love poems been? I didn't realize how I'd missed them until I got here! In ONLY HERE, BETWEEN, Eugene Richie reawakens and revitalizes lost ways of seeing, wanting, and knowing in sensuous and formally-inventive poems that continually refocus the eye. Just as the lover can be the subject of one's affectionate gaze, so can an entire city, light on the water, a memory of a friend, a misremembered song. These poems, which tap into both ancient and dazzlingly modern registers of eros, are written on the body and in the air."--Emily Skillings

"Paeans of a love whose splendors redeem, with disarming candor and tenderness, life's otherwise shattering dejections. That ageless love, of family, friends. And a woman, wife, and muse infinite in her mysteriousness as all three."--Tom Breidenbach

Poetry.