In his sixth book, Cole wants to write "something highly controlled/ that is the opposite," and he succeeds. Once a poet of great formal control and dense, sometimes inscrutable lines, Cole (Middle Earth
) now writes simply and sparely, mixing autobiography, eros and the natural world in a voice that buzzes with emotion. Single-lined stanzas accentuate the poems' spareness, placing great pressure on each line. Cole can devastate ("I'm sorry I cannot say I love you when you say/ you love me,"), declaim in deadpan ("I have a fever which I'm treating with gin") or plainly declare ("I'm tired of just being a man"). Many poems look grief in the face, addressing a dying mother, an ex-lover, flowers and animals, an absent god, the disappointing self, even the 43rd president, with whom Cole admits to a degree of fellowship—a rare sentiment these days, especially in poems—a common fear of "some unbroken animal/ circling in the dark wood." There are a very few moments when the feeling drains, but mostly this intimate, honest voice surprises. Poetry "is stronger/ than I am and makes me do what it wants," Cole writes of the bullying that has produced his best book to date. (Apr.)
