WINNER OF THE 2015 BLUE LIGHT BOOK AWARD ~~~~ In Age of Exploration Christopher Seid gathers memories like salvage, and through them seeks the ever-moving target of truth. These poems exist in a force field between wholeness and limitation, between the longing for transcendence and the realities of responsibility and loss. ~~~~ -Betsy Scholl, Author of Otherwise Unseeable ~~~~ In Age of Exploration, Christopher Seid has crafted a book for seekers, a collection full of questions small and large and journeys far and wide. ~~~~ -Gibson Fay-Leblanc, author of Death of a Ventriloquist ~~~~ The poems in Christopher Seid's Age of Exploration are important to me not just because they are the recorded history of familiar territory, of places I too have lived, but more because they reveal the stunning transformations of real geography versus the geography of the mind, the heart, and memory. ~~~~ - Rustin Larson, author of Bum Cantos, Winter Jazz, & the Collected Discography of Morning ~~~~ Like many of Chris Seid's friends and fans, I've been waiting for this book for many years. Age of Exploration is full of passion, wonder, mystery and joy - the kind of writing that makes you feel happy to be alive and part of it all. Walk with these poems, "through huckleberry over dunes to Nauset Beach." Gaze at the midnight sky, "Blue ash / from the full moon's burn." "Celestial fireworks." You'll find "Radiant knowledge," luminous moments of angst, like a hitchhiker, "waiting / for someone, anyone, to take him home." At the core of these poems is a quiet transcendence - "Every cell pumped with light." A lingering "'Ah' - drop / of ink in the ocean at night." "Singing a capella / some improvisational ode to joy." ~~~~ -Diane Frank, author of Swan Light and Yoga of the Impossible