What's Possible

W.H. Auden saidabout poetry: there is only one thing / that all poetry must do; it mustpraise all it can for being / and for happening. For forty years, RobertCordings poems have sought to praise a world that need not be, but is. Hispoems embrace what cannot be changed: that living brings us face-to-face withsuffering and injustice, beauty and grace. From the start,his work has explored three questions: Why does it feel that life is good,even in the face of so much suffering and grief? How can he be grateful forwhat he has been given despite the almost daily onslaught of affliction andsorrow in the world? How, finally, can he not only embrace, but praise theopposing sides of whats possible: the utter grief and utter joy of beingalive?In the words ofpoet Eamon Grennan, Cording is always transforming his naturalists scrutinyof the world into moral interrogation, bringing to our attention, in poem afterpoem, the strangeness we were born to.Whats Possible:New and Selected Poems makes clear what many have long known: that RobertCording is among his generations finest poets, and that his work has been bothdeeply consistent and yet constantly evolving. Here is a poet both unsparingand generous, a voice that has always heeded Shakespeares injunction to speakwhat we feel, not what we ought to say.