“Richard Fox weaves lyrical magic in his Swagger &Remorse, a book-length series of poems at once intimate (I’d rather be a river than anything else.) and richly metaphysical (Trees look inside the houses, see all the wood &cannot look away.). There are gorgeous lines absolutely everywhere. They help us to consider grief—I’ll always/think of you as I pretend to eat the living air or pull/an origami swan out of nowhere/or out of someone’s ear—with humor and mystery and an elegant humanity. They show us our crazy world of war and moonrises, they hold paradox, they gift us with truth. (A rainbow/raptures down/freighted with pain.) I recommend these distilled and powerful poems, with their birds and trees and houses and fires and rivers and hands and salt and blood to anyone who would like a fresh pair of eyes—Once a year the flowers on this very porch take wing/as if they just remembered something.—and a whole new landscape to marvel over.”
—Maureen Seaton
“Richard Fox’s collection Swagger &Remorse is a stunning volume of poetry. A book length sequence of speculative meditations upon faith and man’s trust in human possibility—and the potential loss of both—these poems are philosophically protean, stylistically adept, and constantly shifting in their perspectives and attitudes. The authority of voice here is startling. Working at times with parable and fragment, Richard Fox often places us in the context of the natural world even as we are asked to question the stability of any “place.” Swagger &Remorse is elliptical, gestural, and elegant in all of its observations and methods. These are the mature poems of man in the middle of fierce and powerful reckonings with experience and the residue of hope, a man recognizing that he may look to the constellations above yet will always walk the earth beneath. These fragments of prayer, ecstasy, and regret make Swagger &Remorse an unforgettable collection of poetry.”
—David St. John, judge, The Patricia Bibby First Book Award, 2007
