Five Things by Galen Steele

The poems in Galen Steele’s debut collection Five Things are searchlights in a universe of mostly unknowns, but some things are known with certainty: the worth of lowly people—a short-order cook, an unhoused man—and the offense of the self-righteous where “the greatest sin is to ask a pious person for an apology.” Steele is brilliant, a pure original whose style is mostly spare and often serio-comic but can erupt into wonderfully magical lines like “The sky is not unhappy, / it is just shaking itself dry / after plunging in exuberance / into the ocean / while on its way here.” Perhaps the greatest unknown we encounter in these unforgettable poems is the poet’s own search for solidity of self, as in the mournful poem “Average” and the bristly line in “Trespassing”: “This blessing is not meant for you.” Yet for all that, it is the stronghold of love that secures him the universe: “I don’t care what happens / inside my flesh / as long as I can find her body.”

–Suzanne Underwood Rhodes, Arkansas Poet Laureate and author of The Perfume of Pain

Five things about Five Things: Brilliant.Well-crafted. Imaginative. Memorable. Optimistic. Galen Steele’s singular perspective shines through every poem in this fine collection. As the poet says in “Vanishing,” Perhaps there’s some happy place in my mind/ where I am heroic, or where life is predictable,/ or truth is simple and lies are plain. These fine poems give me hope.

–Alexis Rhone Fancher, author of Brazen, Triggered, and The Dead Kid Poems