Strong Is Your Hold: Poems

Here in paperback is the celebrated eleventh book of poems by Galway Kinnell. The book’s title derives from Walt Whitman’s “Last Invocation”: “Strong is your hold O mortal flesh, / Strong is your hold O love.” In this striking collection, Kinnell gives us poems of intermingling with the natural world, love poems and evocations of sexuality, poems about his father, his children, poet friends, poet heroes, and mythic figures. Included also is “When the Towers Fell,” his stunning requiem for those who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11.

"Longtime fans and new readers alike will find this collection a powerful addition to an important body of work." Publishers Weekly, Starred

"Kinnell delights in earth's crude beauty via elegantly playful odes to everything that slithers, wriggles, and writhes." --Hannah Tucker Entertainment Weekly