The world of William Trowbridge is one preoccupied with loss, with the fall from some possibility of grace that all who are born must bear. In the title poem of Trowbridge’s first full-length collection the poet calls our attention to movies, to Shane in particular. He asks us to identify, not with Shane, the lonely knight on a nameless quest, but with the much more lonely, and real, Jack Palance, the Prince of Darkness.

Trowbridge favors the villain, the outcast, the imperfect, the sinner, the alienated: King Kong, the Frog Prince, Frankenstein’s monster.