Abstract

Glimpsing life out of the corner of the eye, Raymond Barfield’s poems in Life in the Blind Spot seek that space where direct vision is elusive, but essential. “Ray Barfield’s poems are hot ice, metaphor and metaphysics. His style is beautifully controlled and then he lets go at just the right moment. Wonderful.”—Katia Kapovich “Raymond Barfield’s poems are essential to the age we live in. These philosophically searching, lucidly sensual poems drive at the heart of our understanding. With mindful grace, and ‘suspecting / more than the world to be the case’, Barfield brings to mind our sense of ‘the variations of history’, the many signs and moments that flicker and converge in the various single flame of our existence.”—Ben Mazer “You just have to read one poem… ‘Driving’…to realize that Raymond Barfield is a great American poet. You read other poems and you realize that he is more than that. You put the book down and wonder how you ever lived without it.”—Joe Green