Witty, hard to classify and easy to enjoy, Lux alternates acid wit with off-kilter storytelling in this 10th collection of verse, the first since The Street of Clocks
(2001) and only the second since a 1997 New & Selected
. Lux has been known for his terse, magic-realist scene-setting (which some have compared to Charles Simic): these poems keep the odd situations but rev up the verbal music, with rapid, often lengthy lines and titles that simultaneously charm and disturb—"Debate Regarding the Permissibility of Eating Mermaids," "Can't Sleep the Clowns Will Eat Me," "The American Fancy Rat and Mouse Association" (this last turns out to be a poem about art). Lux tends to open poems with their most bizarre elements, then glide down into familiar sentiments, inviting our sympathy, denouncing his enemies, or making bleak jokes about disappointment and death: "What the maggots do/ they do for you." Standout poems often pivot on prominent factoids: "One out of eight deaths occurring in the home/ or on picnics/ is impalement related." Such arguably morbid (or chilling) themes balance out other, sweeter passages built on parents' experience raising children, or the more infantilizing aspects of everyday life: "Do nothing to further perplex the other perplexed./ We'll let you know when it's single file for lunch." (Apr.)
