Love’s Last Number

“Christopher Howell demonstrates the imagination of a fabulist and the intellect of a philosopher in his richly contemplative poetry collection… . Love’s Last Number showcases a visionary mind and serves as a testament to the power of imagination in connecting human beings to each other.”

“Christopher Howell’s vision is nearly mystical, his music is almost entirely uncanny. His poetry alters the way we might view our brief time here on Earth, by expanding it, by making meaning. But, of course, because he is such a gifted poet, Howell approaches this enormous task through the senses, via the small things, and in language that’s both mesmerizing and plain-spoken. This is a book you’ll read in a sitting, and then return to all your life.”

“Christopher Howell is our own prophet-seer. He knows the numbers of infinite angels dancing on infinite pins. He knows this wrong and shining world the way a boy comes to know it when forced by a teacher to write ‘Dreaming makes us stupid’ over and over on a chalkboard. These poems are great gifts. They contain multitudes of Whitmanesque wisdoms. They read as what our fathers would say to us after they are dead and gone. They are necessary. They are essential.”

“In these offerings, one could easily argue that we are quietly drawn into an entire book of war poems, demonstrating the abidingly cruel relationship between human beings and the inexorable. It is a circumstance so quietly and powerfully vivified time and again. These poems give rise to so much emotion it can barely be contained, defining us all—and this book—as such small but incredibly necessary lights amidst a great, historic, and personal wall of so much.”