Present Vanishing is a book where East and West meet, where Zen contends with social satire, often on the playing fields of American landscapes. In Dick Allen’s new poems, almost every word is a search for calm in the midst of contemporary chaos. Paradox is everywhere: the present vanishes, even as it unscrolls before us.

Author of six previous poetry collections, Dick Allen has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ingram Merrill Foundation. He is also the recipient of the Robert Frost Prize for Poetry and the Hart Crane Poetry Prize. He recently retired from his position at the University of Bridgeport and lives in Trumbull, Connecticut.