New and selected poems

Howe's bountiful fifth collection (after Magdalene) offers a crown of new poems to open selections from her quietly astonishing body of work. These new pieces showcase the poet's characteristic gifts: unearthing the sacred in the everyday and conferring upon the ordinary its rightful aureole: "how small it is sometimes, this Now." Powerful, career-long continuities surface ("it's good to have a dog with you when you are practicing/ not being there: You don't feel so all alone"). In addition to the singular, lyrical voice that distinguishes her earlier work ("the I that caused me so much trouble"), the poet opens into a planetary, even anthropogenic dimension: "We took of the earth and took and took, and the earth/ seemed not to mind." The poems original to the collection subtly chart the writer's coming into her full power: "Now you know what it is to be afraid," she declares in the face of extinction, as prophet, witness, confessor, and guide: "You were once a citizen of the country called I Don't Know./ Remember the boat that brought you here. It was your body: Climb in." The unmistakable objects of Howe's attention remain steadfastly present ("thing and spirit both: the real/ world: evident, invisible"), suffused by a tender doom. This is a necessary compilation for times of crisis. (Apr.)