Soft Water

In poem after poem in his excellent, often chilling, often precisely beautiful collection, Soft Water, Charles Scott demonstrates he's the kind of writer for whom authenticity is both an event of "what happened" and the language that is sought and found to render it. He gets things right. From the outset, his book establishes a quality of truth-telling about Vietnam: "After everything had settled, it was quiet/because there were no wounded, /everyone that was hurt/was dead." That he never raises his voice about sensational moments is part of his authority. And his stateside poems, though informed by his Vietnam experience, can be rich and sensuous and tender. A real talent here. -Stephen Dun