Say What You Will

Translator and poet Krisak (Prudentius%E2%80%99 Crown of Martyrs) assembles a well-crafted collection of translations and original narrative vignettes that abound with terse and scholarly insights. Krisak responds to art, old Hollywood, and poetry from Greek and Roman classics to Housman and Bishop. Approaching the present day with sober acceptance, he marvels at death (humanity%E2%80%99s common denominator) and memory and fantasy (its one true salve). Alluding to the Tower of Babel, he considers environmental plight: "Over and over, down and down,/ The drops, like tongues, confuse our lot,/ Until it seems the earth might drown./ And here we are without a boat./ What is it we are meant to learn?/ What have we done? What did we earn?" Krisak describes the healing symbolism of the Jewish Shiva candle, and then its evocation of the Holocaust: "What is it then that makes me want to flinch/ Each time I see this flame, to redirect/ My gaze? These candles make such meager lamps,/ Yet by their light, I see the chimneyed camps." Though some poems feel overlabored, the poet%E2%80%99s thought- ful tone will satisfy academics and readers of poetry who prefer formalism over a more fluid lyric style. (Nov.)