Otherworld, Underworld, Prayer Porch

David Bottoms, Copper Canyon Press (APRIL) Softcover $16 (72pp), 978-1-55659-520-2

That there’s such a stratospherically high level of difficulty in writing great poetry doesn’t get discussed much, probably out of superstition and a belief among poets that, after Homer’s singular brilliance, the gods disabled the poetry lobe in the human brain. But they missed a couple people, obviously. David Bottoms, what’s divine guidance feel like? The Poet Laureate of Georgia for twelve years, winner of the Walt Whitman Award of the Academy of American Poets, author of ten poetry collections and a couple novels, Bottoms teaches at Georgia State University in Atlanta.