Unearth by Chad Davidson

When I heard Chad had a new book out, I ordered it immediately. You should too. Chad’s writing is gorgeous, and the subject matter of this book is the timeless topics of great poetry—the death of a loved ones, mythology, travel (a partial life, really) in Italy, quiet semi-rustic moments at home. Chad has a way of weaving the moments of life into cloth wrapped around the reader. Buy here.

From “Putting In”

On an island below Italy, after cocktails, / a lemon tree in a pit by the house / we rented for a week. What lives in recess, / what survives, what can, is bitter. / The house of mortarless stone. / Those gangly roadside caper stems / that left green streaks along our car. . .

From “Wake”

. . . Atop the flanks of Vesuvius now, its jagged / rim discernible but just, another opportunity / blown. We are made of such intense regrets. / No taking that back, that or the trawler’s catch. / Look at them now unloading all the spoils, curious / word we use for both the bounty and the waste.

From “On Not Sleeping”

A moon, bright as myth, / scatters in flotsam. Odysseus turns // to depart, yet stories don’t / end. He remembers bodies // brushing in a horse’s belly / rich with steel and other forms // of hate. Is this where the moon, / he thinks, finally wrenches free // from the tide, . . .

Danielle Hanson