Man in the Open Air

There are sundry moments in Sandy's new book when the images suddenly rise up off the page and hang as visions in the air before the startled reader, all color and light like a burst of fireworks on the dark retina before fading again into the poem as an experience of the intellect. Words, image, sound and feeling all unite in a brief, heart-stopping epiphany as revelatory as the high note on a violin in the hands of a master musician. Whether Sandy is writing about his children, his parents and his friends or his sense of community with neighbors and nature, it doesn't matter when ""The White Oak of Eagle Bridge'' or the ``glacial milkshake'' of his waterfall impress themselves. This poetry is pure lyric worked and reworked in a search for what it feels like to be fully human and passionately engaged with all the details of this world, both great and delicate. Sandy is always skillful and admirable; when he achieves this kind of transcendence, he's an artist. (February)