I Only Left for Tea

"We return here often," says Al Black in the book's title poem, "to resume mid-sentence our conversation upon my deck." That's the feel of this book, a kind of wide-ranging conversation with a friend. Even as the book teases out in confessional poems the relation between the past and the present, the author's origins in the Midwest and his life now in the American South, and even as it opens out into broader perspective in voices and stories that spin through the heart of the book, it comes back to the quiet intimacy and vulnerability that drives this collection. Leavetaking and loss haunt the book, but a desire for connection and continuity keeps us coming back to the deck for that "gift of time together." - Ed Madden, author of Nest

„Ne intoarcem adesea aici”, spune Al Black in poezia titlului cartii, „pentru a relua conversatia pe punte la mijlocul frazei noastre”. Aceasta este senzatia acestei carti, un fel de conversatie ampla cu un prieten. Chiar daca cartea elimina in poeziile confesionale relatia dintre trecut si prezent, originile autorului in Midwest si viata lui acum in sudul american si chiar daca se deschide intr-o perspectiva mai larga in voci si povesti care se rotesc prin inima cartii, revine la intimitatea si vulnerabilitatea linistite care conduc aceasta colectie.