Book excerpt: In his prize-winning, debut collection, James Kimbrell demonstrates the power of lyric language to reconfigure memory. The title selection, a poignant ten-part poem, portrays a son's struggle to connect with a father made absent by mental and physical illness. Equipped with the rich imagination of a painter and a poet's love of language, Kimbrell revisits childhood and returns with poems that fathom meaning yet retain a sense of awe.