Radio Time, Poems by W.E. Butts
An entire world is vividly created in the lyric narratives of W.E. Butts’ Radio Time; in these poems, time approaches timelessness.
Sample Poems by W.E. Butts
“Radio Time is a moving book of longing and loss, the poet’s least memory soulfully dialed to elegy and lament; and yet these poems are replete with hope because the poet embraces both emptiness and prayers. I’ve come to believe in the living, writes W.E. Butts in his poem ‘Testament,’ and their sacrament of speech. And the lucky reader—listening, partaking—tunes the searching heart to ‘each word…which is yours, which is mine.’”—Richard Jones
“In Radio Time, W.E. Butts writes with compassion and a comfortable intelligence when exploring the recent past, a past that informs the all-encompassing present. Each narrative is grounded in lucid imaginative textures as they move with relaxed, yet controlled rhythms. You will encounter poems here that are personal, reflective and meditative – a collection that will engulf you with its imagistic vitality and honesty.”—Kevin Pilkington
“In small towns, in orchards and dusty classrooms, W.E. Butts locates and describes the universe that inhabits the poems of Radio Time, his newest and finest book. Out of a childhood that learns ‘what's next is not what we expected,’ comes a poet who can tell us ‘You are what happens next.’ The vision here is keen, the language direct and absolutely on target. This is a voice I believe, a poet I will follow anywhere."—Al Maginnes
W.E. Butts is the author of eight previous poetry collections, including Sunday Evening at the Stardust Café, winner of the 2006 Iowa Source Poetry Book Prize, and the chapbooks Sunday Factory (Finishing Line, 2006) and What to Say if the Birds Ask (Pudding House, 2007). His poems have appeared in such journals as Atlanta Review, Cimarron Review, Mid-American Review, Poetry East, and elsewhere, and in several anthologies. The recipient of two Pushcart Prize nominations and a Massachusetts Artists Foundation Award, he is the 2009 – 2014 Poet Laureate of New Hampshire, and teaches in the low-residency BFA in Creative Writing Program at Goddard College.
ISBN 978-1936370436, 108 pages, $19.00