From the Publisher
"Hints of Samuel Beckett and William Gass (snow, wind, eternity, terror) haunt this book. “You will learn,” the narrator warns: 'In a whiteout you cannot see shadows, but that does not mean the edges are not there.' Sweeney startles with the precision of his figurative description: 'Harpoons loll in our arms like children too old to be held. Along the horizon animals run, disappearing over the brink of snow.'" —Nick Ripatrazone, The Millions
"Much of In the Antarctic Circle is written in stanzas of prose poetry, and Sweeney’s lyric voice is sharply defined and pierced with longing." —Joseph Albernaz, Public Books "As we move through the collection, many will begin to get a sense of an overall plot and may start to feel that the poems are part of some discovered logbook, a diary found in an abandoned shelter on the ice. This feeling comes from Sweeney’s keen ability with description as well as his talent at bringing out the human experience while still experimenting with greater themes." —Marin Killen, Heavy Feather Review
"Of literary 'whiteness' Toni Morrison asked, 'What is it for? What parts do the invention and development of whiteness play in the construction of what is loosely described as ‘American'' In this extraordinary debut collection, Dennis James Sweeney revisits the question via the snowy, violent terrain of love, loss, and supreme isolation. What is the Antarctic Circle and why would anyone willingly live there? It was once promoted, perhaps, as a pristine place, a place to start over, to begin anew. But one cannot leap to newness without acknowledging '[t]he ancient lies [that] rise and gather blackly at the ceiling,' without those pesky blank pages that 'intentionally [hint] at loss,' or without a nod to the 'Black toboggans of the future' Sweeney observes." —Yona Harvey, author of You Don’t Have to Go to Mars for Love
"This elliptical, haunted document is as beautiful and dangerous as the cold continent of which it sings, whispering of loss, of loneliness, of identity, of extinction. A perfect Beckettian marriage between the spoken and the unspoken, the said and the unsayable, this sublime collection speaks as much from its white spaces as from its exquisitely ordered text. In the Antarctic Circle is an unforgettable experience from a master stylist." —Maryse Meijer, author of The Seventh Mansion: A Novel
"What is love in a habitat in crisis? How does desire survive when the land offers no mercy? These are the questions of Sweeney’s In the Antarctic Circle, with its precise and surrealist depictions of ice, snow, and wind coupled with aching gestures toward the lover’s warm body, somehow always out of reach. 'I am alone in the whiteness. I stretch into it and huddle.' We don’t have to visit Antarctica to understand the thrust of these questions; all our landscapes now threaten to reject us. And nonetheless, 'the living are marking what they can.' This exquisite writing is a testament to the effort to survive and to love within a self-generated hostility, a climate of whiteness in which we can only, 'hold our wounds dear, open them repeatedly.'" —Julie Carr, author of Real Life: An Installation
Yona Harvey
Of literary ‘whiteness’ Toni Morrison asked, ‘What is it for? What parts do the invention and development of whiteness play in the construction of what is loosely described as “American”? ’ In this extraordinary debut collection, Sweeney revisits the question via the snowy, violent terrain of love, loss, and supreme isolation. . . . Through the lenses of dystopia and domestic upheaval, the poet braces us for the shrewd chill of this ultimately uninhabitable place. You almost want to direct the speaker-protagonist and lover Hank to turn back. It’s a fool’s errand. But you can’t stop flipping the pages: ‘Though no savior is due, we make a life of waiting. Everyone has every reason to fold.’
Julie Carr
"What is love in a habitat in crisis? How does desire survive when the land offers no mercy? These are the questions of Sweeney’s In the Antarctic Circle, with its precise and surrealist depictions of ice, snow and wind coupled with aching gestures toward the lover’s warm body, somehow always out of reach. 'I am alone in the whiteness. I stretch into it and huddle.' We don’t have to visit Antarctica to understand the thrust of these questions; all our landscapes now threaten to reject us. And nonetheless, 'the living are marking what they can.' This exquisite writing is a testament to the effort to survive and to love within a self-generated hostility, a 'climate' of 'whiteness' in which we can only, 'hold our wounds dear, open them repeatedly.'"
BOMB
"In Sweeney’s debut collection of hybrid narrative prose poems, In the Antarctic Circle (Autumn House Press), his writing travels. . . to the boundaries of the known world and its most inhospitable continent."
Heavy Feather Review
"The Arctic, it seems, is a surprisingly relevant landscape for discussions of current events. Many will relate deeply to the call for change (environmental and otherwise) that Sweeney has woven into his white world. As an addition to the already extensive literary discussions of whiteness, the collection manages to lace history with the ability to conceptualize and imagine whiteness in a new way."
Maryse Meijer
“This elliptical, haunted document is as beautiful and dangerous as the cold continent of which it sings, whispering of loss, of loneliness, of identity, of extinction. A perfect Beckettian marriage between the spoken and the unspoken, the said and the unsayable, this sublime collection speaks as much from its white spaces as from its exquisitely ordered text. In the Antarctic Circle is an unforgettable experience from a master stylist.
Public Books
"In the Antarctic Circle refreshingly diverges from much of contemporary environmentally focused poetry (what might have once been called 'nature poetry') in incorporating narrative elements, but little resolution is offered. Instead, space is cleared so new journeys can begin. Between the slow threat of geology and the faster threat of human violence, certainties of doom and redemption are both dispelled: 'The end has come and already left,' and in the wake of winter’s inexorable erasures, new forms of connection are awaiting their birth: 'Blankness, too, can gestate.'"
