PRAISE FOR EYE DIALECT

"Michigan feels like a myth or a dream to move towards or away from, to work on and against. In Griffin Irvine's EYE DIALECT I see the world laid out in ruins and at first I think it's spring in the future it's so mysterious and strange, but then with growing familiarity I'm pulled in, and recognize these works as an accounting of our world already, and Griffin's there, ready to bless and curse as needed, ready to move out the furniture and rebuild, to stop the old world from rolling in where a new one can do better. I move through these poems as on a bus, and though they look spare they feel vast and echoing, like finding something you lost in a place you've never been, or "like all the years i wasn't/ in michigan// & now splinter / when i move i'm reminded// when i call the landscapes/ they answer// for you"

— Laura Henriksen, author of Agata

"The heart of a new poetry! Griffin Irvine’s razor walk puts the test to its world of new understanding for this sudden, woken frame we stand inside. Poetry at its best, giving us an angle on the strength we always knew it had, and now with this book, we have it. Irvine is proof that there is no better time for poetry than now."

— CA Conrad, author of While Standing in Line for Death

"Agitated about/by the world and filled with the restless anxiety of his city, EYE DIALECT enjambs humanistic, beautiful observation with sidelines of political furor ("let all the rats free / kill my boss") in a language and attitude marked by years spent closely reading the difficult... Irvine coughs up little mouthfuls of rhythm and stacks them confidently, defying their inherently odd and rough shapes. An unsettling, satisfying book which I gladly allowed to lead me "down bitter aluminum / hallway in light."

— Dave Morse, author of Sermons