"To write essays is to respond to life with life," W.S. Di Piero wrote in his last essay collection, City Dog, "to counter-pressure life's press. It's always ad hoc or on the wing, because the inner life keeps changing, troping along with whatever reality gives it to work with." In When Can I See You Again? the reality Di Piero works with is art. His range is broad and deep. He writes on classics like Rembrandt and Degas but also offers punchy reconsiderations of Norman Rockwell and Frida Kahlo and of offbeat subjects like fetish art and snapshot photography. This is Di Piero's fifth collection of essays. It follows his Chinese Apples, New & Selected Poems published by Knopf in 2007. According to Poetry magazine, " W.S. Di Piero is probably the most consistently compelling and idiosyncratic writer among contemporary American poets." When Can I See You Again? eliminates the probably.
