The Rules of Paradise

by D. Nurkse

Nurkse delivers, as always, narratives and lyrics of sparkling intelligence and wit, complicated by emotional dramas which engage, alarm, and earn our attention and concerns every step of the way.

Genres: Poetry

86 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2001

About the author

D. (Dennis) Nurkse is the author of eight books of poetry. He has received the Whiting Writers’ Award, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, two grants from the New York State Foundation for the Arts, and other awards. He has also written widely on human rights.

Reviews

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nurkse brings the reader into a scene quickly with succinct details. While there, however, one is not sure if it is a current event, a memory, a dream, or an unfulfilled wish. This became evident to me in the poem that touches me deeply, “The Thread of the Conversation,” in which his father appeared beside him in the hospital, napping in a chair in the middle of the night. That his father “napped” indicates his presence was the best conversation he could provide.

His father winds through this deeply personal work that visits the poet’s roles as son, husband, a “real father” himself. These lines at the end of “Rendezvous in Providence” sum up much of the emotion in this volume, a indelible yet distant presence, banked in a thin mist of melancholy:

this love, this fear, these white hairs
tangled in a single comb.

Nurkse has much to teach about the details that carry a ring that keeps on rippling through the reader long after they are read, and that speak of the deeper relationships that never quite resolve themselves.