About Wilkinson's Circles Where the Head Should Be

The poems in Circles Where the Head Should Be are full of objects and oddities, bits of news, epic catalogues, and a cast of characters hoping to make sense of it all. Underneath the often whimsical surface, however, lies a search for those connections we long for but so often miss, and a wish for art to bridge the gaps.

“Circles Where the Head Should Be has its own distinctive voice, a lively intelligence, insatiable curiosity, and a decided command of form. These qualities play off one another in ways that instruct and delight. An irresistible book.” —J. D. McClatchy, author of Mercury Dressing: Poems, judge

Storm and Stress

That a spider web supports a bead of rain
is as significant
as rain’s resolve, poised where some spinneret
has pitched its threads aslant,
since, held or holding, each endures a strain–
one presses, one reacts.
Don’t ask me what it’s worth. Despite the facts
of matter’s favored states,
such concentration’s of no consequence
beyond this life, a net
tailored to break, too late for recompense
when
weight evaporates.