Breeze, winner of the 2003 Ernest Sandeen Prize in Poetry, exudes a material and musical sensibility, informed as much by the sound of a word as it rolls off the tongue as by the ideas it may trigger. Two beliefs shape these poems. First, that attention to language -- to its sound and vagary -- is as crucial to writing as attentiveness to the minutiae of the world. Second, that language and the world will always make an uneven fit.

In these carefully crafted poems, John Latta traces the process of language attempting to align its measure against the amplitude of the world. His writing recognizes the futility of representing the world while braving the caprice of trying to do so. Made of image, invention, and music, the poetry of Breeze challenges and inspires.