“A Map of Shadows is an ambitious, enthusiastic sequence of lyrics and meditations that is unique yet has affinities with works as distinguished—
and as “difficult,” because of far-flung sources and innovative arrangements—as Ezra Pound’s Cantos and David Jones’s Anathemata. Its polymath author is devoted to the visual arts, and one might think of his own product as a kind of Kuntskammer of historical anecdotes and contemporary aperçus, arcane quotations and esoteric lists (18th century Chinese painters’ brushstrokes, magical herbs, sacred stones), recipes and white spells and inkhorn terms, ingenious machinery devised by such out-of-the-way designers as Giacomo Torelli and Salomon de Caus...everywhere informed by a sensibility strongly inclined to synaestheia, this volume speaks to the collector of curiosities and the connoisseurs of chaos latent in the postmodern soul.”
—Stephen Yenser, author of Blue Guide
“By turns effete, surreal, charming, and daring, but continually deft, this map of poetic shadows tells mysterious stories, tickled by the occasional flutter of rhyme over the steady wonder of the unfolding images. Gabriel Meyer has a light touch and a sure hand.”
—Annie Finch, author of Among the Goddesses: An Epic Libretto in Seven Dreams
“Gabriel Meyer’s new collection A Map of Shadows is an ingenious and compelling sequence of meditations and reflections on the Tuileries garden in Paris, as both subject and backdrop. Charting a path from the garden’s historical presence to its contemporary resonance, Gabe Meyer sketches the various figures of the Tuileries, from Louis XIV to the speaker/observer of these very poems. Gracious and elegant at every moment, A Map of Shadows recognizes the constant desire for an Eden—a paradise—that arises in artist, citizen, and lover alike.”
—David St. John, author of The Auroras
