The poems in Cherubims explore the complex labyrinth of childhood—and parenting—in ways that are unflinchingly candid, delightfully entertaining, and unmistakably wise. The collection offers readers a sustained and thoughtful musing on life, one that gives voice to puzzlement alongside praise, to worries as well as wonder. Throughout this volume Edward Clarke’s writing weds reverence and wit, a rare accomplishment in contemporary poetry, and make no mistake about it: these are brilliantly crafted poems, quietly elegant in style, unobtrusively measured in form, and thoroughly delicious to read. —Mark S. Burrows, author of The Chance of Home. Poems (2018) and Meister Eckhart’s Book of Secrets (2019)