The Word We Used For It

Max Garland, University of Wisconsin Press, Softcover $14.95 (72pp) 978-0-299-31434-7

Alas, young poet, lock away the sharp utensils before indulging in a few lines from this new Max Garland collection. Pick a page, any page—33, for example—and witness this astounding level of thoughtfulness and delivery: I like the way objects retain the history of motion in their shapes, and things that aren’t still appear.

A former poet laureate of Wisconsin, Garland takes every bit of eleven or so years to let go of a new collection; this latest one is only his third in the last twenty-two years. That says something, youngster.