Often going beyond mere stream of consciousness, George J. Farrah in Relieved of their Whispers tamps down the strictures of ego itself, as one might pass by a student who always raises their hand first. These are aphoristically languid poems of wisdom—a collection of life moment’s that, like a collection of record albums, has value both in its parts and the sum of its parts. An unnamed “he” says, “you or I have become/ so unbearably stretched/ by our habits.” Farrah writes poems in counterpoint to this unnamed he—poems that distill, distill, distill. These are poems that document less being in love with the world than being in love with the experience of being in the world, alone and with others, such that it becomes a poetry of praise for this thing called life.

Matt Mauch, author of We’re the Flownover.  We Come From Flyoverland