The Wanderer King
Theodore Deppe
“These beautiful, literate poems explore how we must relate to one another in order to survive. they examine the relationship of suffering and redemption; they propose the importance of imagination; and they say that continuing to care for one another in a dangerous world where grief and joy collide is indeed a risk, but it may be only answer”
—Money Review
"In these elegant and searing poems, Theodore Deppe gives voice
to the full complexity of human character, creating a world that is charged and expansive.
With cinematic vividness and stunning eloquence, these poems examine the tensions between
hope and despair, responsibility and mystery—as if a sacred universe we were in
danger of losing had been stayed at the moment of vanishing. The dramatic monologues are a
triumph of the imagination."
—Betsy Sholl
"Deppe mediates his subjects with a Chekhovian eye and heart in
these extraordinary poems."
—Stephen Dunn
about the author
Theodore Deppe was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1950. He is a graduate of Vermont College's MFA in Writing program and holds degrees from Earlham
and Berea Colleges. Deppe is the author of Children of the Air (1990) and The Wanderer King (1996), both from Alice James Books. His Cape Clear: New and Selected Poems was published by Salmon Books in Ireland in 2002. He has been awarded two NEA grants and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Commision and the Connecticut Commission for the Arts. He has won a Pushcart Prize and is the present writer-in-residence at Phillips Academy in Andover.
Author photo by Mark Wootton
two poems from the wanderer king
