Achsah Guibbory

Galileo’s Spyglass

Arts & Literature

“Sean McDowell’s Galileo’s Spyglass is a beautiful book with his delicate, dreamy watercolor paintings carefully scattered like leaves through the volume, deepening the meaning of adjacent poems. Who knew so many colors could be present in small paintings, reduced to blacks, greys, and whites. Intellect, knowledge, craft, and heart are in this book. His poems make present the past. Some are subtly connected. The poem about Galileo making his ‘spyglass’ is followed by Sean imagining the thoughts of the housemaid looking out the window, standing behind the woman writing a letter in Vermeer’s famous painting. There are many poems about personal loss, mourning and memorializing beloved friends who have passed yet remain very present in these poems. Sean McDowell’s beautifully crafted poems have powerful endings that pack an emotional punch that make you want to return to them, again and again.”