Standoff: Poems

a standoff between what

happens around me & what's

going on inside—& this life

that goes on & on inside my head

goes on & on & on it seems

almost without me, as

it has since childhood . . .

—from "Standoff"

For three decades, David Rivard has written from deep within the skin of our times. With Standoff, he asks an essential question: In a world of noise, of global anxiety and media distraction, how can we speak to each other with honesty? These poems scan th...