The Wonder World

For more than half a century, Albert Goldbarth has been one of America’s most celebrated and distinctive poets. A two-time recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award, he returns with a vibrant new collection, The Wonder World.

The Wonder World confronts the losses and betrayals of life while finding enduring wonder in the worlds of art, history, science, and the cosmos. Ripe with both comedy and elegy, and leaping across time from the intimate modern mundane to the pre-historical, these poems bring together an eclectic cast—Julius Cesear, Michael Jackson, Anne Sexton, Abagail Adams, the Pope, and the speaker’s wife and dear friends—in a shared exploration of what it means to be human.

Rich with imagination, moral gravity, and Goldbarth’s signature wit, this collection illuminates both our fragility and our miraculous resilience.