Publication Date: February 15, 2026
Paperback, 88 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-35-2
Of his “Writing Desk” poet Robert M. West laments “Too little of what / takes place here (too // seldom in the first // place) ever does take / shape to speak of.” This volume belies that, gathering for the first time West’s lapidary verse, which takes many shapes and touches on nearly all of life, all with elegant brevity. None more than a few lines, often with only a few words, his poems fulfill the promise of the title, serving up keen observation of nature and human nature, with wit and wisdom.
Praise for Robert M. West & A Clear Eye
What a welcome book this is! In a time when too much poetry is too prolix, Robert West offers us 59 poems that are models of evocative brevity, his short lines and stanzas delightfully inventive, his crisp images and phrases dazzling. Here and there, I heard echoes of other contemporary masters of the epigrammatic mode, like A. R. Ammons or Kay Ryan, but only as sympathetic riffs in the highly original verbal music of Robert West. A Clear Eye is a brilliant, heartfelt, and very satisfying collection.
—Michael McFee, author of A Long Time to Be Gone
If poetry is the essence of observation and experience, Robert West’s debut collection is the essence of the essence: an imagistic blink, a wink, an arched brow of surprise. But don’t be fooled or read too quickly. A Clear Eye melds the depth of form and subject with the wonder of understatement. He makes you look twice to take it all in: sly humor, the wordplay of frailer/failure and solely/soul, the adage flipped on its head, a magnolia blossom like “bright hands reflecting dear flame.” It takes a clear eye and open heart—and a poet’s mastery—to notice the sparks so often overlooked, to really see, as West does, the invitation of our world’s “dark exhilaration” streaking across the page of night.
—Linda Parsons, Knoxville Poet Laureate & author of Valediction: Poems and Prose
About the Author
Robert M. West is co-editor with Jonathan Greene of Succinct: The Broadstone Anthology of Short Poems (2013), editor of both volumes of The Complete Poems of A. R. Ammons (W. W. Norton, 2017), and co-editor with Jesse Graves of Robert Morgan: Essays on the Life and Work (McFarland, 2022). Originally from the mountains of western North Carolina, he is now head of the Department of Classical & Modern Languages and Literatures at Mississippi State University, where he also serves as a professor of English and as associate editor of Mississippi Quarterly: The Journal of Southern Cultures.
Publication Date: February 15, 2026
Paperback, 88 pages
ISBN: 978-1-966677-35-2
Of his “Writing Desk” poet Robert M. West laments “Too little of what / takes place here (too // seldom in the first // place) ever does take / shape to speak of.” This volume belies that, gathering for the first time West’s lapidary verse, which takes many shapes and touches on nearly all of life, all with elegant brevity. None more than a few lines, often with only a few words, his poems fulfill the promise of the title, serving up keen observation of nature and human nature, with wit and wisdom.
Praise for Robert M. West & A Clear Eye
What a welcome book this is! In a time when too much poetry is too prolix, Robert West offers us 59 poems that are models of evocative brevity, his short lines and stanzas delightfully inventive, his crisp images and phrases dazzling. Here and there, I heard echoes of other contemporary masters of the epigrammatic mode, like A. R. Ammons or Kay Ryan, but only as sympathetic riffs in the highly original verbal music of Robert West. A Clear Eye is a brilliant, heartfelt, and very satisfying collection.
—Michael McFee, author of A Long Time to Be Gone
If poetry is the essence of observation and experience, Robert West’s debut collection is the essence of the essence: an imagistic blink, a wink, an arched brow of surprise. But don’t be fooled or read too quickly. A Clear Eye melds the depth of form and subject with the wonder of understatement. He makes you look twice to take it all in: sly humor, the wordplay of frailer/failure and solely/soul, the adage flipped on its head, a magnolia blossom like “bright hands reflecting dear flame.” It takes a clear eye and open heart—and a poet’s mastery—to notice the sparks so often overlooked, to really see, as West does, the invitation of our world’s “dark exhilaration” streaking across the page of night.
—Linda Parsons, Knoxville Poet Laureate & author of Valediction: Poems and Prose
About the Author
Robert M. West is co-editor with Jonathan Greene of Succinct: The Broadstone Anthology of Short Poems (2013), editor of both volumes of The Complete Poems of A. R. Ammons (W. W. Norton, 2017), and co-editor with Jesse Graves of Robert Morgan: Essays on the Life and Work (McFarland, 2022). Originally from the mountains of western North Carolina, he is now head of the Department of Classical & Modern Languages and Literatures at Mississippi State University, where he also serves as a professor of English and as associate editor of Mississippi Quarterly: The Journal of Southern Cultures.
