This smart, lyrical collection explores the dangers of a world so complex that no single consciousness may grasp it-however much the attempt must be made. Following historical and imagined figures as they encounter specific moments or objects (such as Thomas Hariot in the Ameri-can Wilderness of the late 16th century), the poems attempt to record the unraveling of the safe and singular into a multiplicity of unknowns. Impelled by metaphor and lilting repetition, "North True South Bright "seeks a sense of the world, and ultimately, a sense of the Infinite. Hariot's RoundI know, to entice, to convince, I must singYour ear inside stone, must singGold bitten and true, the corn kernel, one seed, I must plant one gold seed in your mouth with my lips. Raleigh says: the Queen known my name. The CrownOf a "woodpecker" is ruby, but shy. Inhabitants adorn themselves with feathers, and feathersBright on arrow ends. Bow-before a Queen. Bend closed my book. The page is deaf that turns back to look at what it found.""In "North True South Bright," Dan Beachy-Quick proves the compass of his eye to be perfectly exact, precisely true. These poems are finely made contemporaries of sunlight. And, like sunlight, their history is Now."-Donald Revell