I’m excited to share the cover of Unburial, which is a monotype by Berlin-based artist and friend Beatriz Crespo. It was handpicked by me from hundreds of possibilities—this one struck me. I liked the colors—reminiscent of certain walls in Rome that I love—and the movement, as if some hidden force were pushing upwards to be released. It’s the same motion that drove the composition of the poems in the book, historical forces fighting to bob to the surface where they can finally be seen in clear light.

I’m also indebted to three of the finest poets and translators I know for the blurbs that grace the back cover. Please check out the work of Moira Egan, Aaron Poochigian and Michael Palma. You’ll be glad you did.

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                                  —Every so often, though,
he’d open one of those drawers in his desk
pull out a tray of vibrant minerals:

round geodes, spiky quartz and silky slate,
mica which turned to powder in my hands
flecked by a billion years of sediment,

weightless pumice, granite, obsidian,
the names alone enough to set me dreaming
of further atmospheres. These fragments he kept

kept secrets of their own, had fallen to Earth
from spacetime, or grew organically
in igneous niches of our planet’s skin.

– from “A User’s Guide to Rocks & Minerals” (Unburial)