Vermeer in Hell

White (Re-Entry), the 2013 winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky Editor's Choice Award, offers a sonically lush, ekphrasis-centric fourth collection conjured from the paintings of Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. He describes with unmistakable pleasure Vermeer's exquisite palettes: "then lean// back into the breathless/ hush of pearl again,// where everything about her burns a different shade/ of blue: her lunar morning// jacket, rumpled folds of the linen tablecloth,/ the granular blue air." These descriptions, though charming, well-crafted, and well-textured, offer little insight other than placing the reader into a painting's context. Only when White attempts to reach past the canvas towards the ineffable does the poetry break free of the paintings from which they originate. White flirts with the edge of this "unseen sea" when he describes an officer flirting with a girl: "her wren-like self, her awkwardly rouged lips/ & cheeks%E2%80%94& this is my favorite part%E2%80%94her lazy/ right eye drifting a little out, beyond." White asks us to look hard, not only at the paintings he loves%E2%80%94with their fascinating subjects wearing satin gowns with a "gold-foil sheen," or pouring a rivulet of milk%E2%80%94but also at the beauty in the everyday and the complex histories we share. (Sept.)