Christopher S. Soden / Paul Koniecki
'Terrible Grace is a stunning and surreal carnival, where 'the next tent/ is ten shades of blackstrap dim' and the family is made up of the 'exquisitely broken and extraterrestrial interlopers'. I admire this poetry’s astounding images and well-made lines and the way the two voices blend and diverge. I’m taken by their close attentions to the mysteries of fatherhood and gender, the mystery of love, not to mention language itself: '...cold enough to see our breath we made language in the tall grass on the days the words won’t come we hold hands.'-Joseph Millar, Author of Kingdom: Carnegie-Mellon Poetry Series and Dark Harvest: Eastern Washington University Press.'Who, reading these poems, won’t catch a glimpse of them-selves in the mocked and misunderstood lives disclosed here? The two poets’ conjoined visions allow us not only to meet a carnival of 'exquisitely broken' beings, but to slip inside their skins and share what burns in their interiors, from disdain for ignorant gawkers to the fierce will to be alive. And we may need to ask if there’s something in us, too, of the crowds of clueless onlookers estranged from their own souls. Otherness blazes in this collection. Alligator Woman 'lights a fire with her tail.' A father assures his son that 'God has many plans and we/are two of them.' The two halves of the book, like conjoined twins Wilbur and Stanley, feed each other. Mystery and awe coupled with lush, unexpected language lights fires in the imagination.'-Joan Larkin, author of My Body: New and Selected Poems: Hanging Loose Press'In Paul Koneicki and Christopher Soden’s Terrible Grace we find a collaboration of empathy, intelligence, and beauty. These poems which move in the American tradition of Persona go beyond simply dreaming into another’s life. A dream that in less skilled hands would stop at the surprise of seeing someone or something that was different than themselves. Instead Koneicki and Soden join the likes of poets like AI who are not only inspired by their subjects but write through a voice that humanizes and illuminates them. At turns lyrical and masterfully narrative, this collection is a bit of grace focused on an often terrible moment of our history.'-Matthew Dickman, Author of Wonderland, W. W. Norton and Company'I’ve heard rumblings about this project for a long time now & it doesn’t disappoint. Koniecki & Soden’s Terrible Grace is the perfect literary pairing of contemporary American poets, both surreal & starkly realistic, like the writers themselves, the book puts some distance between two lives held so close together, yet at times so far apart, while allowing them to remain whole.'-John Dorsey, Author of Sundown at the Redneck Carnival, Spartan Press'In Terrible Grace, Paul Koniecki and Christopher Soden peer into the lives of carnival performers, discover ’the fault/ in others and the beauty in ourselves.’ These portraits are nuanced, rich with dazzling imagery, charged with interiority, and make visible ’radiant misfortune.’ Koniecki and Soden possess impressive imaginations. I’m thankful they wrote this book. -Eduardo Corral, author of: Slow Lightning: Yale Younger Poets and Guillotine: Graywolf Press
