Not One Man's Work

Kinsey's third collection pursues familiar themes: the love of the outdoors, the melancholy of childhood memories, the fleet passing of human time compared to nature's slow progression. Kinsey utilizes an extremely plainspoken style which often borders on journalism: ""The man who played right/ and batted clean-up,/ had played for the Fifteen Miles Falls team/ the two years it had taken/ to build the dam..."" This directness contributes to the collection's accumulated power, especially when combined with the vivid images of his parents' and grandparents' farm life and the rural world-""the bump and grind of work and sex and trying""- against a backdrop of New England mountain towns and Canadian plains. There's power there as well: ""The rush and flow of rivers brings/ gravity and perspective back,/ the sense that you could fall into something/ dangerous not just huge."" Most moving are poems written about Kinsey's interaction with his young son, who sometimes ""needs to hear/ that things will stay the same,/ at others that things will change,/ neither true, neither quite reassurance."" (May)