Broken Cage

Wood (Fold of the Map), with a gentle dexterity, crafts a swirling atmosphere out of kaleidoscopic phrases and images to create “an unfurling helix” effect. His title poem, a plainspoken piece that serves as a sort of legend, succinctly states that “all components are elusive and shifting,” which gives Wood the opportunity to “tell you a story and, months later, tell it to you again.” Readers are invited to investigate this recursive world, triangulating a path through formal scaffolding that gives the collection the tone of a foreboding chant. Wood rows “in circles gently, so as not to incur reflection,” precluding the existence of any clear-cut, one-to-one parallels. Notions of physicality and spirituality are intertwined throughout, and bodily imagery (particularly allusions to an illness where “a microbe’s job is no mystery”) and religious diction are sewn together so tightly that it’s difficult to bisect the two (for “Angels live in our nerve endings”). These vivacious, inventive, and exploratory poems are vast in scope and quick to point out that “we are citizens of a small era, humbled lilies lilting along the hillside.” Wood notes, “Each trip smells different/ in the grass,” and paying attention to each “anomaly in a field or knoll” remains the optimal method of navigating his terrain. (Aug.)