The Last Troubadour

A haunting and intimately observed new collection from David St. John, a poet of soaring imagination and passionate candorIn The Last Troubadour David St. John has given us a collection of new and selected poems of astonishing beauty that are precise and keenly reflective but also touched with sensuality and deep feeling. Nothing is too small to escape notice (in “Guitar” St. John reflects on the beauty of that word) or too large to be explored—the suicide of a friend, the illness of a lover, or the texture of longing and desire. A sharp observer of landscapes within and without, St. John directs his empathetic gaze and vivid, inventive voice to investigating both the darkest and the most inspiring parts of being human—the small moments between friends and lovers as well as the groundswells that alter lives. At times lyrical, sometimes conversational, occasionally wry and playful, St. John’s poetry reveals an expansive vision animated by “intimacy and subtlety, and by a disturbing force, the work of an urgent sensibility and a true ear” (W. S. Merwin). The beauty, music, and artistry of David St. John’s widely admired work is fully on display in this masterful collection.