An Abundance of Caution (Unbound Edition Press, 2023).
A poetry collection lending a voice to finding grace in a time marked by environmental crisis, global pandemic, and personal loss, answering uncertainty with clarity, imagination, and compassion in lines both formal and free.
Distinguished by expert attention to image and phrase, line and sentence, rhythm and tone, George Witte‘s An Abundance of Caution proves much more than a showcase of virtuoso technique. Witte’s formal skill lends voice and body to the crucial work of finding grace in a time marked by environmental crisis, global pandemic, and personal loss. His poems gain their depth and dimension from attentiveness to the lives of others, the details of the natural world, and the often-bewildering ways we live now. In lines both formal and free, these poems answer uncertainty with clarity, imagination, and compassion. An Abundance of Caution is George Witte’s fourth collection of poems.
Reviews
“The poet’s incredible attention to image, rhythm, and insistence upon the exact right word creates an incantatory sense of era-encapsulating collection of stylish, deftly composed poems.”
“These elegantly constructed poems about “each livid day” are definitely worth listening to.”
Ron Charles, The Washington Post Book Club Newsletter
“An Abundance of Caution is a polyphonic symphony … This is a collection for the ages.”
Anton Yakovlev
“Witte’s poems find their way in, taking up residence in the mind and heart.”
David Yezzi
“These poems remind us that … we can still enjoy mysterious moments of grace.”
Henry Hart
“Witte surprises and startles, so that ‘we might learn astonishment / again’.”
Ernest Hilbert
“Visionary is what I would call the quality that enables these poems to know realities that exceed comprehension …”
H. L. Hix
“Each poem in this book is to be savored for its deft skillfulness, and almost every phrase has surprises that require mental adjustments. It is a pleasure, a challenge, and a reward to immerse oneself in these highly imaginative poems …”
Anis Shivani