In praise of fragments

Assembled during the last year of her life, this collection from distinguished poet Alexander (Atmospheric Embroidery) moves briskly from her Kerala, India, childhood to Hyderabad, Venice, and 17th-century Venetian Jewish poet Sarra Copia Sulam. Bright and lush, these ingratiating poems fly by but aren't really fragments; each contains a well-articulated moment, and they are united by their reflections on our pasts and ourselves. "All of us live with ghosts./ This is part of what makes us human," says a prelude poem, which ends affectingly, "Where and what is home? How much can a body be home?"--an important question given the geographic territory Alexander covered in her life and work. Wherever her poems head, she recalls "all that tethered me there." VERDICT Vibrant, approachable work; the Sulam poems are accompanied by Alexander's exuberant drawings.