G.C. Waldrep, always a startlingly original, appealing poetic voice, uses music theory and history to explore the interweaving of language and music. In fiercely intelligent, passionate verse, the poet seeks the delicate point between the voice of a singer (music) and that of a poet (language).

An archicembalo (pronounced ark-e-chem-ball-o) was a complex sixteenth-century instrument, a successor to the harpsichord.

The book is structured after a gamut, a nineteenth-century musical primer. Originally a single note on the scale, a gamut later came to mean a whole range--as in a singer or actor's ability to "cover the whole gamut."

Gamuts were composed in a question and answer structure. Archicembalo is also set up as a call-and-response. Poems take off from each title (the question) and answer in exquisitely musical verses, metaphorical and rhythmical. It is a joy to read aloud.

G.C. Waldrep's first book of poems, Goldbeater's Skin, won the 2003 Colorado Prize for Poetry, judged by Donald Revell. His second collection was Disclamor (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2007). Waldrep holds degrees in American history from Harvard and Duke universities and an MFA from the University of Iowa. His work has received awards from the Academy of American Poets, Poetry Society of America, Campbell Corner Foundation, and Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, as well as a Pushcart Prize. He has had residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, Ucross Foundation, and elsewhere. He was a 2007 NEA Fellow in Literature. He lives in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, where he teaches at Bucknell University and directs the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets.