“The title of this remarkable book comes from a lyric about the terror of being buried alive, but it could as easily refer to tobacco in a pipe or the way good poems are made—compacted, but not too much. Mark Todd’s poetry lives at the juncture of literature and folklore, a place of language revitalized by actual speech rhythms. This is a book of stories and songs and song-like stories celebrating American vernacular and the people who inhabit the land. Todd’s welcoming voice—veering like life itself between sadness and hilarity—should be welcome everywhere poetry is heard.”
– David Mason, author of the nationally acclaimed verse novel, Ludlow, and contributing poetry editor for the Hudson Review

“Mark Todd writes wondrously of the intricacies of the New West and the complexities of the Old West.  His themes encompass people, wild and domestic animals, and the incomparable landscape that connects them.  Throughout, he renders poetic forms and poetic sensibilities by playing with words in free verse, rhymed couplets, ballads, sonnets, sestinas, and villanelles.  His strongest work, however, is the authenticity and genuine voice that he brings to the narrative style.  John Wesley Hardin comes alive, as does a railroad laborer, the fabled ghost of La Llorona de San Luis, and others.  From a humorous prehistoric dinosaur to startling futuristic flashes of insight, Mark Todd reveals a world he worships through daily reverent interaction.”
– Laurie Wagner Buyer, poet, novelist, and winner of the Colorado Book Award for Poetry

“Instead of saying, ‘My foot hurts,’ Robert Frost put it this way: ‘My instep arch . . . keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.’ Reading Mark Todd's poems, you are likely to feel the weight of your own body press against a stirrup while your fingers tighten and chafe on the reins. Todd's lyrics and narratives capture the essence of the West in many memorable ways, and his skill with a variety of difficult poetic forms is indisputably accomplished.”
– R.S. Gwynn, editor of numerous anthologies and books, including Penguin’s Poetry: A Pocket Anthology

“In Tamped, But Loose Enough to Breathe, Mark Todd has so much to say about Colorado and the American west that he compresses Virgil’s entire rota into one ambitious volume.  The book includes idylls of nature, georgics of the hard-working life of a rancher, and even several powerful narratives of epic ambition, most notably “John Wesley Hardin,” a long sequence about the violent life of that notorious outlaw.  In turn, the contemporary American west is fortunate to have such a poet, in whose work so much energy and skill wed the feeling that there is still so much to say and so many stories to tell.  Learned and skilled yet accessible, Todd’s poems embody a vision of a particular place, yet like “regionalists” such as Robert Frost, Robinson Jeffers, Carl Sandburg and Wendell Berry, Todd also speaks of far greater worlds, those both visible and imagined.”
– David J. Rothman, celebrated poet and editor for The Geography of Hope: Poets of Colorado’s Western Slope

“Mark Todd’s … verse gives memorable expression to a particular place – the high plains and mountain valleys of the Colorado Rockies. There is nothing homespun abot his deft and sophisticated work, but it could not have been written anywhere else. Not only his subjects, but his imagery, style, and tone originate in the geography of his home. He is passionately local without ever being parochial, and his work reminds us of how many great poets – Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost, E.A. Robinson, Robinson Jeffers, to name only a few – have purposely situated their verse in a particular place.”
– Dana Gioia, former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts and internationally acclaimed and award-winning poet

“In Wire Song Mark Todd crafts viable, sensual metaphors of the Southwestern landscape – its earth, its sky, and its creatures, including man. Just as importantly, he demonstrates a sensitive control of the music of his lines that is quite extraordinary. Wire Song is a significant work, well worthy of its subject.”
– Keith Wilson, nationally award-winning poet and author of eleven collections of verse

“These poems from the back roads of the West are a triumph of place, of sweetness, and of form.”
– James Tipton, recipient of the Colorado Book Award for Poetry and author of numerous books of poetry

The Silverville
Pantiwyckes

Coming
Spring
2010

Strange
Attractors

Coming
Fall
2010