This volume, Ralph Pordzik’s second to be published after Hotel Salvador Dali (2008), adds to his growing reputation as a new international voice writing in English. Not unlike its precursor, Pretending to See Elephants explores a wide range of feeling; spanning the grating stridence and urbanity of short verse and the cacophonous voices of longer elegies and monologues, the poems tucked away between these covers engage a startling variety of subjects showing both the precision and rhythmical poise of a writer using English to express personal sentiment in a globalizing poetical context. The central poem – a gripping fictional sequence about the wandering biblical sage Qoheleth – is preceded by shorter pieces dealing with a broad range of topics, all showing the rigors of a conscious craft that seeks everywhere to liberate the imagination. „. . . a cross between T. S. Eliot, Stephen Spender and New York LANGUAGE poetry (if anyone asks)!“ (Chris Thurgar-Dawson, Teesside University)