The poems of Compass and Clock take their inspiration from the intersection of the natural world and the human, exploring the landscapes in which those intersections occur. Those landscapes range from David Sanders’s native midwestern countryside to the caves of Lascaux and an enchanted lake where relics of lost lives are washed ashore. Yet, the true source of the poems’ vitality is Sanders’s attention to the missed or misread moments, those times when the act fails, and the perceived clashes with the actual.

Here, the satisfying pairing of elegance and vulnerability invites the reader to tour those uncanny landscapes from which one returns irrevocably changed—refreshed, but wistful. In a review of his earlier limited-edition work, Time in Transit, the Hudson Review called David Sanders “a poet to watch.” With the Swallow Press publication of Compass and Clock, we have the realization of that promise.

When Laurence Lieberman writes of Guyana or islands in the Dutch West Indies, he excavates, explores, even exhumes the essence of the place. In the flora and fauna, in the rural cafes and ruins of churches and crypts, in the taste of iguana soup and the look of light through stained glass, Lieberman unfolds an exquisite atlas of the senses.

The awe of encounter, the raw impact, beauty, and sometimes the brutality of both the surroundings and the people fuel this poetry. Whether he meets an iguana hunter, a bricklayer, a witness to the United States–led Grenada invasion, or a classical composer, Lieberman gives the reader a vivid combination of his own wit and surprising observations mingled with the speech of each character.

Folk tales, legends, and island myths play a great role in his newest work. In the eddies of a river in Guyana, Lieberman dares river demons. On the island of Aruba, he hears the chants and work songs of long-dead miners in an abandoned gold mine. He briefly loses himself when he stares into the mirror of a well once frequented by slaves on Bonaire.

Coupled with natural forces—floods, volcanic eruptions, constant rains—these folk tales and the stories of the islanders’ lives create a “wedding of sun and rain,” and a map to the troves of the Caribbean hidden beneath a rich and often violent history.

Janet Coleman brilliantly recreates the time, the place, the personalities, and the neurotic magic whereby the Compass made theater history in America. The Compass began in a storefront theater near the University of Chicago campus in the summer of 1955 and lasted only a few years before its players—including David Shepherd, Paul Sills, Elaine May, Mike Nichols, Barbara Harris, and Shelley Berman—moved on. Out of this group was born a new form: improvisational theater and a radically new kind of comedian. "They did not plan to be funny or to change the course of comedy," writes Coleman. "But that is what happened."

"For anyone who is interested in theatre, underground theatre, improvisational theatre, and the sheer madness of trying something new with a repertory group, The Compass will prove a welcome history with fascinating details."—Norman Mailer

"Janet Coleman has done a spectacular job of capturing the history, the almost alarmingly diverse cultural influences, and the extraordinary people who made up the Compass."—Neal Weaver, Los Angeles Village View

"Engrossing. . . . An open window on a part of the theater that should be known."—Arthur Miller

"A valuable chronicle of an important chapter in the history of comedy and theater."—William Wolf, New York Observer

"The eruptive, disruptive talents who made the theater memorable are the same ones who make The Compass a good read."—Jay Cocks, Time

"A moving, inspirational, anecdote-studded feast."—Publishers Weekly