FORGIVE US OUR HAPPINESS

 

“While many young poets arrive barely hatched from their apprenticeship cocoons, others simply appear in the tree, singing, like some new species of bird. Chris Forhan is that second kind of creature, and the voice in these poems—at once wry, plaintive, self-chastising, inventive, innocent and wise—never fails to compel and to surprise. How—why should one resist such songs?”

                 —Ellen Bryant Voigt, judge of 1998 Katharine Bakeless Nason Poetry Prize

 

“Chris Forhan . . . ranges . . . widely . . ., sometimes deftly examining the nature of language itself, sometimes turning his focus outward to the natural world, indifferent to language. And sometimes, in the tradition of Wallace Stevens, he ponders the endless irony that we are by nature a language-using animal trying to make sense of that indifferent nature.”

                —Seattle Times

 

“Chris Forhan[ʼs] expressions . . . are compelling and straightforward, making him a real pleasure to read. . . . An infectious transcendentalism imbues his honest, unpretentious themes. . . .  Forhan is a soothing and refreshing poet.”

                 —Bellingham Herald