Swarm

T S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery — and Jorie Graham. The New Yorker places Ms. Graham in this distinguished line of poets, heralding the Pulitzer Prize winner as a profound voice in American poetry. Now, in her eighth collection, she further enhances her reputation with a book-length sequence of verse that is a stunning work of grandeur. The New Republic writes, “for ‘swarm,’ in other words…read ‘be born again.’ Graham is writing about a spiritual turning point, a new beginning…. Beauty — that is, the pure sense-perception which has long been a concern for Graham — is no longer the most important criterion. Now goodness is…[and] the idea of submission, of obedience, without one must ‘yield’ before ‘hearing the reason’ for yielding.”