The Apparitioners (Three Rail Press, 2005) is my first book of poems–a beautiful hardcover, with golden yellow endpapers and a jacket and interior design by Jeff Clark of Quemadura. It’s only available through used booksellers, but if you’d like to order a signed first edition for yourself or as a gift, please contact me directly. Or, come see me read and buy a copy there.
The poems of The Apparitioners by George Witte explore the boundaries between us and the world we have colonized, where we find ourselves unsettled by some mystery that cannot be owned. A father tries to calm his daughter, who is troubled by night visitors after a schoolmate is carried away. Having purchased his ideal home in a planned development, a man confronts past ghosts and his own doubts about belonging. And a woman nearly killed by stroke struggles to recover her place in her family and community, but finds welcome from a surprising host. Longer narratives alternate with lyrics that through close observation seek out the natural world, a presence that on occasion offers us a glimpse of purpose. Moving between poles of assurance and unease, secrecy and revelation, The Apparitioners is a noteworthy debut.
Reviews
“The Apparitioners is George Witte’s first book of poetry, but you would never guess it from his confident, ironic style, which moves easily from colloquial speech-rhythms to rich natural description….Like a Frost of the suburbs, Mr. Witte regards the cozy, domesticated landscape he inhabits with an unsettling lucidity, which gives everything he sees the aspect of a parable or a warning….Anyone who has felt intimations of mortality in our American abundance will recognize the power of Mr. Witte’s poems.” —Adam Kirsch, New York Sun
“A genuine religious sensibility informs these poems, animated not by allegiance to doctrines, rituals, or commands, but rather by a sense of mystery…. If you read only one book of poems this year, make it this one.” —Frank Wilson, Philadelphia Inquirer
“Mature in both voice and vision….The nature lyric is the art at which he excels, eschewing the traps of ego and shaping crystalline detail with the motion of thought in a style that evokes both A. R. Ammons and Robert Frost….There is much to recommend here.” —Library Journal
“…a serious and impressive debut….Reviewers have made comparisons between Witte and Frost; it seems too, that he shares some of Amy Clampitt’s proclivity for lush language, some of Larkin’s wry cynicism….I was impressed by the sense of craft, patience, and vision.” —Jessica Murray, Birmingham Poetry Review
“Witte’s interest in casual American speech, and some of his Northeastern landscapes, suggest Robert Frost, while the austerity of his diction, and his more than passing interest in mortality, imply lessons learned from Anthony Hecht…work of long planning and considered judgement.” —Publishers Weekly