Drowned River CL

Lux ( Half Promised Land ) assurespromises used right before/pk epiphanies here, but his leaden insights never budge beyond the pedestrian. Attracted to a number of grim or macabre subjects--the Confederate Army's Andersonville prison, an exhibit of torture instruments, the procurement of corpses for medical schools--the poet makes pronouncements that are stale (``It seems most times men did this or that, / so terrible to him or her, / it was because God willed it so. / Or, at least, they thought He did'') or silly (``Haitian cadavers / are best for what cadavers do best: lie still''). Elsewhere he focuses on domesticity, describing the days surrounding the birth of his daughter, a man shoveling his driveway during a snowstorm, driving to work. Throughout, however, his propensity for repetition and reiteration deflates the impact of his observations. (Feb.)