Everything Broken Up Dances

In his first book published in America, English poet Byrne (White Coins) traverses continents and time with a globetrotter’s inquisitive spirit. The collection is ambitious both for the range of physical and mental spaces it inhabits and for its unusual use of language—particularly its employment of vernacular and non-English vocabulary. Byrne is unafraid of leaping from narrative to lyric voice in successive poems, and he excels at crafting phrases that surprise the ear while challenging the eye: “through salt tides/ and toothsucking sand// the bell of your name// Ali.” In “Trinkets,” Byrne forges rhyme, repetition, and image into a moving tribute to a friend’s dying mother: “Trinkets over the bribe that punishes—/ a fair Dinar paid to brown the roses/ that bloom each day in her arteries.” The collection’s eponymous closer is arguably its most brilliant poem; Byrne links standalone lines through anaphora in a stunning five-section lyric that muses on the “insatiable sadness of stepfathers,” the “crack of the starter pistol and the breaking of glass,” and a “library shelved with human ashes,” among much else. With the risks Byrne takes, there are moments when poems can feel cryptic to readers looking for solid anchors, but once accustomed to his shifting registers there are great rewards. (Dec.)