Bly's first book of verse since last year's The Winged Energy of Delight: Selected Translations
is also his second collection of what he calls ghazals: unrhymed, intensely wrought 18-line pentameter poems based on the Urdu form of that name. Bly's ghazals let him leap from topic to topic, showcasing exclamations and single images: "We are the sparrow that flies through the warrior's/ Hall and back out into the falling snow," he announces in "Brahms," one of many poems that aim "to praise all the great musicians." (Haydn, Rameau and the virtuosi of sitar and tabla get tributes, as do biblical characters.) Many stanzas pivot on Bly's speech to himself ("Robert, you're close to joy but not quite there"); always Bly strives for passionate wisdom. The results, when pushed through Bly's more Iron John
–like persona, sometimes end up self-helpy: "A pain that we have earned gives more nourishment/ Than the joy we won at the lottery last night." Some readers may find individual lines impressive, but the book as a whole ends up being less than the sum of its joyous parts. Readers who miss the direct, daring Bly of the '60s, though, may rejoice to find that he's back, in force. (June)
