cover image Tall Birds Stalking

Tall Birds Stalking

Michael Van Walleghen. University of Pittsburgh Press, $19.95 (76pp) ISBN 978-0-8229-3794-4

Terse without rigidity, visceral without melodrama, Van Walleghen's ( The Wichita Poems ) poetry is engaging. Readers will be carried along easily by his narrative voice. In fact, his voice (there is only one) is his poetry. It is the voice of a veteran storyteller: Van Walleghen has an ability (rare in poetry) for building suspense, for finding the single detail that gives a chill. In one poem, where neighbors die mysteriously by asphyxiation, the behavior of their dog foreshadows their demise: ``we'd hear his chain run out / and then this little grunt / that always left us worried.'' In another, about the suicide of a brother, a blue butterfly provides the eerie impetus for a survivor to finally bury the ashes. Haunting images, combined with straightforward free verse, distinguish the poetry. Van Walleghen's work lays open a world that, at times, seems pretty unworldly--and one that is frequently stark, disturbing and lovely. (June)