Swamp Candles: Poems

Well-placed colloquialisms and convincing natural imagery give ballast to metaphysical themes in Burns's fifth book, co-winner of the 1995 Iowa Poetry Prize (Maureen Seaton's Furious Cooking is the other winner; see Forecasts, Mar. 18). ""`There you are you son of a bitch'/ I said waking in ignorance, raising/ my fists, then standing suddenly// asking, `What?...'"" Thus begins ""To My Father in Heaven,"" in which the speaker awakes to consciousness roaring with declaration before a second look at the world spurs him to further reflection: ""to be responsible for one's words/ means to suspect them."" In these 22 poems, Burns writes about sexual abduction, the aerial courtship of birds, a spied-on sexual encounter. Good humor often leavens his images: in ""Slug Caterpillar,"" he describes the creature as ""a whole team/ of Minnie Minosas hogging home plate."" But throughout, the tone is generally more somber: ""At the start were two children. Then language./ Then love which passeth understanding./ But that was the morning and evening of the first day."" The fusing of the cosmic with the intimate works much better in smaller poems. In ""The Hope of the Mississippi,"" he pays homage to the gambler's god, Lady Luck: ""How else do I broom up/ an answer for my son/ at bedtime after I've read him/ Icarus? His question: How would you rescue me?"" (May)