Shadow Ball: New and Selected Poems

Webb at his best is genuinely funny and genuinely reliable in his reactions to the dilemmas of middle-aged American men: “My head's a planet with failing gravity,” he writes in “Losing My Hair”; “One by one its people fall into the sky.” This selection from five earlier books should confirm the esteem in which other poets hold his comic talents. The baby boom can seem inescapable: “Comebacks,” one of 14 new poems, considers “The Eagles” and “Robert Plant in '69”: “Don't all of our bands break up, our shows shut down,/ agents stop returning our calls?” Webb's humor sometimes suggests David Kirby or even Billy Collins, as in pieces called “Prayer to Tear the Sperm-Dam Down,” “Teachers' Names” (“ 'May I Have a Hall Pass, Mrs. Titsworth, Please?' ”) and even “I Have Much Better Poems than This.” When Webb shifts to seriousness, his advice becomes reliable but predictable, too (“Love freely. Treat ex-partners as kindly/ as you can”). Such lack of ambition may send away some readers: others, though, will deeply enjoy this affable writer's many brisk, sparkling lines. (Sept.)