Something Shining: Poems

Elegies, ghazals, epigrams, travel poems, and domestic verses present Halpern (Foreign Neon) as an articulate, amiable, comfortable, middle-aged man contemplating, in this ninth collection, mortality, fatherhood, friendship, food and wine--sometimes separately, sometimes all at once. While alert to nuances of feeling, Halpern's lines lack acoustic and formal interest: many seem inert both aurally and intellectively. In one quietly celebratory poem, ""We place beach chairs just beyond the tidal line/ and here we sit. Shorts and T-shirts. Yet not wholly here."" ""Direction"" explains portentously ""my path is not destined/ although the one direction now is forward."" ""Midnight: Triadic Ghazal"" makes this its central image: ""In the dark we walk through rooms/ familiar as questions/ asked of us over and over."" And in the entirely predictable ""Dance,"" ""The evening moves on the heat of the rhythm."" Sometimes Halpern seems to be trying for camp, as in the bathetic Latinity of ""Infestation"" (""gentle sleep/ that's said to be indispensable/ for cerebral stability"") or at the end of ""Beauty & Restraint"": ""even the sun, hovering in this paradise,/ eventually goes down."" But most of the poems come across as sincere and slack, with the genuinely campy ""Carnival Food"" and ""Carnival Mood,"" and a diverting sestina-like poem in five-line stanzas, coming across as the only real inventions. Halpern seems content with careful records of his feelings and deeds. It's hard to imagine readers will feel the same. (Nov.) FYI: Halpern co-founded the Ecco Press, now a Harper imprint, and remains its editorial director.