Riddles, Etc.

“There’s a magic at work in these often tight, but never cinctured, poems ... The collection contains 17 riddles, their answers revealed on the final page, but well-worth the poetic game of waiting.” —Nick Ripatrazone, the Millions

In his debut collection, Riddles Etc., Geoffrey Hilsabeck proves himself adept at paradox, a poet who reaches toward the largeness of the cosmos in order to bring its essence closer to us. Approaching his subjects with the difficult task of describing their spirit without naming it directly, this collection is also a love letter—“Dear citizen stargazer”—to the known and unknown. A singular imagination is at work here, writing toward the unique and peculiar qualities of things and beings, displaying the relative similarities of all phenomena.
Geoffrey Hilsabeck is the author of the chapbooks The Keepers of Secrets and Vaudeville. His poems, essays and translations have appeared in Seneca Review, 6X6, Bomb, the New York Times Magazine, the Believer and the Poetry Foundation. He teaches at West Virginia University and lives in Morgantown, West Virginia.