Aimless love New and selected poems

Collins, or the speaker in his poems, watches himself with helpless bemusement as he lives a life of continual self-expression, / jotting down little things. Obsessive noticing gets him into all sorts of trouble, as recounted so wryly, so tenderly in Aimless Love, the poem that gives this vital and shrewdly provocative volume its title and in which the speaker records his sequential ardor for a wren, a mouse, and a bar of soap. In selections from his four most recent collections, from Nine Horses (2002) to Horoscopes for the Dead (2011), and 51 glimmering new poems, former poet laureate and reader favorite Collins, the maestro of the running-brook line and the clever pivot, celebrates the resonance and absurdity of what might be called the poet's attention-surfeit disorder. He nimbly mixes the timeless--the sun, loneliness with the fidgety, digital now. Some poems are funny from the opening gambit to the closing flourish. But Collins' droll wit is often a diversionary tactic, so that when he strikes you with the hard edge of his darker visions, you reel.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist

In his first collection of poems in 12 years, former U.S. Poet Laureate Collins (Sailing Alone Around the Room) demonstrates yet again why he is arguably the most famous poet in America. Collins's work is accessible, dealing as it does with everyday experience using conversational language, but this is not a criticism. The subtlety and wit of Collins's poetry come through well in this recording as the poet reads his work in a comfortably appealing voice. VERDICT An enjoyable -collection for all readers.-Wendy Galgan, St. Francis Coll., Brooklyn (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.