Shattering Air

Despite the poem whose title claims ""Against Romanticism,"" Biespiel's debut collection is sustained by a search for transcendent, intuitive truths linking nature with human-usually his own- consciousness. These moments are expressed in highly stylized metaphor: ""We forget the sunlight's/ Vernal nerves that petition the air."" Although he occasionally probes the man-made world of K marts and country music in his quest for internal discovery, Biespiel stays mainly in the natural world. Yet even his subtle descriptions of closely observed natural beauty are put in service of revealing his interior landscape. Glances back at adolescent sexuality in Texas and Oklahoma are vacuumed for metaphysical significance, as in the long poem, ""Holy Water"": ""She was a girl I don't remember,/ Our feet in gulfwater,/ Whiskey, constellations/ Clenching the hour's teeth."" This tendency to strain toward profundity, along with Biespiel's frequent reliance on interrogatives and such unconvincing phrases as ""the judgeless/ Moan of the sun,"" lead to a stilted, self-reflective tone that seems aimed more at revealing the poet's sensitivity than at illuminating his experience (May)