The Curious Thing

The introspective third collection from Lim (The Wilderness) sees the poet train her eye on the retreating shoreline of a life, a "thousand mile scent// Going all through the body." In these measured, graceful pages, Lim is "trying// to get at the work of the matter" through memory. "Part of me watches the rest of me being/ anxious, superior, and invaded/ by longing," she writes. Many of these poems double as ars poeticas, revealing that the urge to take stock of past decisions, relationships, and ways of being marries naturally with artistic self-scrutiny: "My moods were like conspirators in an opera/ then strange-faced, like a jury," she writes; "Florid eighteenth-century music against/ taciturn furniture. And there was just me and my human concerns." While Lim%E2%80%99s images are striking, some readers may find the air a bit too rarefied: "Summertime: parole for academics./ Long days, low yield." Elsewhere, she suggests that "[t]here is more to life than writing," but in a book as scrupulously attentive to craft as this one, writing reads as the main event. "The other day, my friend declared that she favored/ straightforward narratives: clear, unassuming, and, if tart,/ amiably so. I felt the reproach," she admits. Readers seeking contemplative poems executed with quiet flair will take pleasure here. (Sept.)