Naming the Dead

In Naming the Dead, Robert Collins takes the reader into "the blind world here below," a world inhabited by sinners, saints, and strangers, who often are one and the same. From childhood playgrounds through the suffering of adulthood, the heart of the collection is made of eight elegies literally naming the dead and paying homage to some who have served as mentors and companions on the journey. We learn, then, that the only way to return home is to keep moving forward. Thus, the poet offers hope, however tentative, that those who enter the abyss might like Dante "ascend into the shining world again."