It Is Going to Be a Good Year

In his debut collection, Fletcher chronicles the absurdity and pathos of daily life with a forthrightness that is as refreshing as it is disheartening. The poems contend with the tension between unexamined existence and existential crisis, between running errands and being reminded of one's own mortality. In the poem "When I Go to Bed I Go to Bed with the Lights On," the speaker addresses the moon directly, saying "I think/ You are a kiddie-pool and I will drown in you," but then rejects the drama of that line by following it with "and after that I think about field trips and cold cuts." Fletcher deftly utilizes these juxtapositions to create humor, though sometimes his commitment to a clever self-consciousness threatens to deaden the more emotional moments, as when he ends the poem "You Are a Beauty and I Am Alright" with "It was so obvious/ that I'm not even going to talk about it." He makes similar gestures at the ends of many poems. Mostly, though, this is a fresh, funny, and occasionally devastating collection full of reminders that one must contend with the world as it exists, not as one wishes it to be. (Mar.)