In the poems of A Beggar's Loom, Matt Santateresa reaches deeply into place and time to bring us stories from the past: General Wolfe scaling the ramparts of Quebec City gives way to Baudelaire writing to his mulatto lover, Jeanne Duvall. One hundred years later, Shoemaker and Levy, both astronomers, remark upon the sky with telescopes, as lovers look into the heavens imagining a string of comets heading toward Jupiter. The past becomes present in these poems, and the present is enlivened with the knowledge of eternal verities. In his second book of poetry, Matt Santateresa has artfully woven the disparate elements of A Beggar's Loom into a work of astonishing richness and depth.
