Book excerpt: Poetry. Essays. In THE CRY AT ZERO, Andrew Joron ranges through literature, science, and philosophy as he maps a poetics, and gripping poetic ontology, that responds to the disturbing politics of our time. Confronting postmodern skepticism, Joron begins from the premise that poets are "chained to the impossible," and that the poetic "cry" exceeds specific social crises. Joron teaches us that more than ever before there us a distinct and obvious place for the unsayable, the abysmal, in our poetic practice. Joron's prose works, interwoven here with a series of soaringly lyrical prose poems, are indispensable in our attempts to embrace a creative space that encompasses human experience.