Sunworshippers

Paul Ebenkamp

The outcome of a series of extended techniques developed over a decade of psychic repair, Sunworshippers is a work of mid-life summation done by someone who knows darn well they were just born. In a constant circadian volte-face between self and soul, reticence and openness, mortal limit and cosmic intermittence, these imaginal forms welcome all trouble and all desire. Bewildered laughter is involved; awe is actively courted; exuberantly bleak zones are approached and embodied with incandescent tenderness; harmony and joy are well-documented. Our era may be one of hyper-executive, ultra-processed self-possessiveness, but truth makes the new music, here in the ancient present: “new vistas of nowhere else.”

''(You don’t have / to finish this)' writes Paul Ebenkamp early on in 'Follower,' but I can’t quit this tractor beam of a book—it’s got my number and my order ready and is everything I want from poetry. There’s so much strange, strong motion here—not to mention all the spooky static cling and action—and when Sunworshippers speeds to a halt, you’ll want to read it all over again, this time with even more feeling, more attention, more patience, more smarts, which is to say more of what it gave to you the first time around. Pack a lunch and put some napkins in the bag—you’re gonna be here a while.' – Graham Foust