The Whole Motion

"There is a physicality and a willfulness, a biblical sweep and grandness to Dickey's poetry whether he's writing about dust or combat, trees or animals, love or seasons . . . A definitive retrospective."—Booklist

"Dickey is no ruminator or meditator. Perception with him is not a static matter. It is characteristically, whatever his subject, a clash, a confrontation, something that might happen in a cyclotron; and the particles that are struck off are new and packed with primal energy, particles of order destroyed during the act of creation . . . What I am left with is an awed sense of the pure power of these words"—Wallace Stegner

"A career-spanning collection by National Book Award winner James Dickey, 'the high flier of American poets.'"—John Updike

"There is a physicality and a willfulness, a biblical sweep and grandness to Dickey's poetry whether he's writing about dust or combat, trees or animals, love or seasons . . . A definitive retrospective."—Booklist

"One of the things we should mean when we call a poet 'good' is that his work returns us to the world and not merely to the poet. We do not assimilate good poetry; we become included in its imagination. James Dickey is a good poet, very good."—Michael Goldman, The Nation

"Dickey is no ruminator or meditator. Perception with him is not a static matter. It is characteristically, whatever his subject, a clash, a confrontation, something that might happen in a cyclotron; and the particles that are struck off are new and packed with primal energy, particles of order destroyed during the act of creation . . . What I am left with is an awed sense of the pure power of these words"—Wallace Stegner

"A career-spanning collection by National Book Award winner James Dickey, 'the high flier of American poets.'"—John Updike