Orrery

The peculiar title refers to a model of the solar system, named for the Earl of Orrery (16761731), for whom the first one was constructedand this dense and daunting book fulfills its billing splendidly. The position on earth from which the poet describes the zodiac is an apple farm in Vermont whose main business is the production of cider jelly. Within the large clockwork scheme devised to order his work, the individual poems of the central sequence, called ""Apples,'' are delightfully small, intimate and original, tracing a year-long sojourn in the country with friends. Though this is an ambitious work, it is never overweening: these little cogs mesh with the big apparatus of the book, and Kenney's impressive erudition and astonishing fluency are never allowed to get out of hand. November