I Left Nothing Inside On Purpose

Poems of stringent aesthetic demands and volcanic emotional release make up Stevie Howell's wondrous I left nothing inside on purpose. These poems--bewildering in their linguistic beauty--verge on prayer in their intense plea to be truly seen by another, a sort of devotional sequence addressing the psychological construct of attachment. Can we change? Has anyone ever changed? Does it matter? Lives marred by injury and violence, both physical and psychic, emerge in the book as meditations on trust, endurance, faith, destruction, and love. Howell's voice combines ferocious intimacy and moral rigour with precision and compassion.

The Hawaiian surf, the neuropsychologist's lab, the deliriums of social media, and the recovery room. From geology to theology, lyric pain to the contemplative mind of the quasi-saint, I left nothing inside on purpose is a deeply affecting, glittering analysis of who we are when we claim to be ourselves in the world.