Invention of Zero

Chris Greenhalgh's distinctive third collection is a book of sensuous meditations on time and mortality, love and art. At its heart is a suite of prose poems. Intimate in tone, formally experimental and lyrically charged, they pick up and develop threads from his title, "The Invention of Zero". Like his first two books, Greenhalgh’s new collection is alive with vivid imagery and narrative excitement. At once passionate and ironic, dark and witty, the poems are acutely observed and enjoy a new depth of feeling. His language is sensitive, exact, and alert to the layered and luminous surfaces as well as the discontinuities of modern life. There is an urgency and immediacy to Greenhalgh’s latest work that makes it contemporary and playful but also emotionally compelling, tender and true.