Robert Haight

Shimmer Robert Haight

The poems in Haight's aptly titled Shimmer radiate from the poet's reflection on a life lived simply, close to home, lit at times by the small pleasures of the world. Such pleasures-warmth, joy, love-emanate not only from Haight's unique take on the world's usual astonishments, as in the moonlight "that danced on the rim / of where water meets sky" ("Shimmer"), but also from what light he finds in less likely places, like allergy shots or stink bugs. This book warms me. Every poem provides a "momentary flame / a small burst of brightness" ("Year End").

-Phillip Sterling, Author of Short on Days

Shimmer celebrates the radiant things of the earth: rivers and lakes, moonlight on snow, the "flaring taper" of a piece of stove wood mistaken for fireworks. In this age when we are increasingly divided among ourselves and separated from nature, Robert Haight's love songs to our wounded world are both a tonic and an act of rebellion.

-Jerry Dennis, Author of The Windward Shore and other books

Rural Michigan, Robert Haight reminds us in these knowing and reverent poems, is still a mysterious place, where bits of light pile, pool, flame and stick to spider silk. Elsewhere "the creek is gone, the woods / are gone and the houses / were long ago finished," but fields "shaggy / with wildflowers" and water that "meets sky" survive-and shimmer. What most humans have abandoned or lost to the countryside becomes treasure under his gaze.

-Alison Swan, Author of A Fine Canopy