What is the spirit of our age, and what are the consequences of that spirit? THE POLITE SOCIETY pursues these questions, urging readers to ignore politics in its infamous, decadent sense and focus instead on how we might still work together to flourish together."Seamlessly the beautiful poems of Ross White's THE POLITE SOCIETY traverse the page, but then, reading, you are struck by the sense of language as suddenly all the more mysterious—language, that is, as the ultimate system, frighteningly capable of both negotiation and song. If 'the system' threatens an all-encompassing politics, which it might, resistance is found in ourselves, our own imaginations. These poems are the proof."—Sally KeithPoetry.