In Infinite Sky Divided, Howard Altmann maps the territories where memory intersects with history, where personal grief meets collective trauma. These luminous poems move with the precision of a master craftsman, weaving through landscapes both intimate and vast — from wartime Budapest to contemporary Kyiv, from Portuguese cobblestones to American hotel bars.
Altmann's voice carries the weight of witness, transforming moments of profound stillness into revelations. Whether observing a dead bird in snow, listening to Fado in Lisbon's alleys, or watching fog lift from a valley, he finds in each image a doorway to deeper understanding. His poems are both elegy and celebration, capturing how "the infinite sky divided" reflects our own fractured yet enduring humanity.
With remarkable range and emotional intelligence, Altmann proves himself a poet of rare gifts — one who can make the ordinary sacred and render the incomprehensible beautifully, painfully clear.
Howard Altmann is an acclaimed international poet whose work has been translated into Portuguese and Hebrew — original collections published in 2019 and 2021 — and German, in addition to two prior collections in English. A frequent contributor to The Guardian's 'Poem of the Week' series, his poems have appeared in The Atlantic, Best American Poetry, Poetry, TLS and elsewhere. A native of Montreal, he holds degrees from McGill and Stanford and lives in Brooklyn.
"Howard Altmann's surprised and surprising environment…is a quietly brilliant achievement." — John Ashbery
"Howard Altmann writes from 'a nation in full flight / from the nature of things,' a nation that largely substitutes low forms of technological and social connection over the everpresent, living links that have belonged to us all along. With haunting poetic patterns and an inspired grammar, Infinite Sky Divided houses a citizenry of snows, rivers, weathers, creatures, 'a mouth of earth,' 'a shroud of air,' and, yes, humans. Because Altmann refuses to treat such elements and selves as mere facts, objects or beauties, you have in your hands a book that says, at base, nothing is independent or alone, that while we are 'covering loneliness / with blankets,' we might find some strange citizen is waiting to speak to us, snow by imperiled snow." — Katie Ford
"Howard Altmann is an inventor of verbal scenes, where clarity and mystery keep switching places, and imagery seems to have a will of its own. His lucky readers are in for some startling imaginative rides." — Billy Collins
"Howard Altmann's new book Infinite Sky Divided dazzles with originality. There's an interplay we've never seen before between subject and object, the immediate and the absolute, 'the observer / and the observed holding hands / with time...' There's also a sense of profound rootedness, a vision that stretches back to prehistory: 'whatever is in the rains is in my face as I'm talking / to you...' Ultimately these wild and gentle poems are timeless. Prayers that expect no answer, riddles concerned only with truth, Altmann's lines shine with the silence and contingency of our unknowable lives. Infinite Sky Divided is a beacon in an age of noise." — D. Nurske
