Try (Iowa Poetry Prize)

"[U]nlike many poets before her who have practiced the art of ekphrasis by describing or illuminating the visual, Swensen is interested in the representation of representation, in examining not only the way the paintings make meaning, but the way language makes meaning of that meaning....Swensen has a painter's eye for color and texture, and most particularly for gesture and movement....Our speed of sight, the filmic surface of contemporary vision, our ability to pan, scan, splice, fragment, and make whole again, are made manifest in TRY. By book's end, we are ultimately caught in the gaze of looking at ourselves."Cole Swensen is the author of 'Try (Iowa Poetry Prize)', published 1999 under ISBN 9780877456599 and ISBN 0877456593.