From the Distances of Sleep
$12Poems by Daniel Tobin. Volume 1 of the GLOSS Arias series. Perfect bound paperback. First edition, 2025.
Reviews:
Harvard Review (by Michael McGillicuddy)
“In his epitaph ‘On Elizabeth L.H.’ Ben Jonson wrote: ‘Wouldst thou hear what Man can say / in a little? Reader, stay.’ Reading these lapidary and glinting poems I'm reminded of masters of the short form--not only Jonson but also that other great Romantic poet, Walter Savage Landor. Daniel Tobin's ‘From the Distances of Sleep’ shows just how far a poet can travel in the space of a few lines. ‘After the first world / another brightens’ writes Tobin in one of the shimmering couplets assembled here. That hopeful note is not unmixed with darkness, as last things shadow these felicitous and shining poems. Do not be deceived by their brevity. The finest epigrams conceal an explosive power: ‘as though I could flower / inside myself, a bomb / locked inside a fist.’
— Askold Melnyczuk