Marc Alan Di Martino

Unburial Marc Alan Di Martino

"Runaway," the remarkable first poem in this remarkable first collection by Marc Alan Di Martino, is like the proverbial potato chip: you won't be able to stop after just one. You will read straight through this carefully structured set of reminiscences and meditations on family, love, and the ways in which seriously flawed human beings (a redundancy if there ever was one) try to make sense of their lives. Displaying an eye for the revealing detail and an ear for the unexpected phrase, these poems combine a rigorous intellect with a compassionate heart to provide a deeply felt and deeply satisfying experience.

Michael Palma, poet and translator of Dante's Inferno

-"The human condition spares no one." I think we all know this, but in Unburial, Marc Alan Di Martino movingly embodies the many ways in which it is true. The poems trace a family tale that is unique, yet very American: transatlantic navigations, divorces, remarriages, stepfamilies; divagations from the "round geodes, spiky quartz and silky slate" of the earth we stand on to "Star tissue... black holes [that] devour their young." Unsparingly, these poems examine dark matter of all sorts, but one finds in the poet's quest to "unbury" (the languages, the losses, the loves of his origins) the ability to grab on to the horns of a luminescent moon ("Copper-crowned / night, twilit and electric blue") and steer us, at least temporarily, away from despair. This is a beautifully structured and resonant debut.

Moira Egan