In this, his second collection of poetry, Carl R. Martin seeks out essences of things, of thoughts, of broad sweeps of culture and language. In a work which resists classification, Martin's use of the permutations and gradations of meaning, the nuance created in artistic space by the tension inherent in the relation of thought and image, defies literal interpretation. His words mimic his technique, as in the final stanza of his poem titled "That Child":
Resolutions of time
Are constantly insufficient, as
If words of Kant
Flow smoothly as dialectic. Here, where feathers might be ruffled, a calm hand seems to soothe, laying to rest secret and mysterious fallacies never voiced or even fully formed in the mind, where
The object's the point,
Layout of affections,
The map of the surface.
