There are few poetry books of its kind. And perhaps for good reason. After all, a collection of this nature isn’t easy to achieve. For Victor Marrero manages to take a hyper-specific subject matter–Michelangelo’s unfinished “Four Prisoners” sculptures–and deftly expand it so as to apply to such universal themes as humankind’s endless quest for meaning in existence, its tendency toward self-imprisonment and the author’s own search for his place in the universe. Extraordinary in its structure and meticulousness, Atlas, Bound is truly a one-of-a-kind collection that is almost as much a philosophy book as it is a poetry book. Something, in short, that would do Michelangelo proud.

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