Sand Theory

"With each book, William Olsen's work centers more intensely upon ordinary experience. And with each book Olsen's work becomes at once more empathetic and more visionary. The real world in Sand Theory is not a world of mere appearances. It is real. Temporality makes it so, as does morality. And yet Olsen maintains a permeable boundary beyond which is what? The eternal? The spiritual? Whatever name one chooses, its illumination shines through these poems." —Stuart Dybek

"Sand Theory is a book of poems that sound as if they belong to life after this (and I am reminded of Rilke's musing that one should be given a day and a room, after death, in which to write) and as such the book does not belong to a singular voice (astonishing as it is) but to the very idea of voice, what it means, and meant, and why this trust; so when this book gives good advice about hanging on, or 'merciful instructions' for letting go, know it is a book that is talking you back to life, as it leaves you breathless." —Mary Ruefle

"To walk into Bill Olsen's poems is to enter a mind so weirdly curious, you can't be released to sadness, not yet: it's just too surprising. But this book—half microscope, half telescope—shadows grief, our shared and ordinary life where a neighbor obsessively gathers twigs to wish back the tree, where the moon is regularly 'sawn in half', where sprinklers give off 'little wet speeches.' What else? It's brilliantly instead and odd." —Marianne Boruch