Mojave Ghost

The expansive and arresting latest from Pulitzer winner Gander (Be With) comprises what he calls a “novel poem,” a book-length single poem that spans time, space, and narrative perspective against stark and arresting desert environments. Roughly broken into page-long scenes, the poem asks, “Is there an emotion of awareness?” Working to transcend the constraints of narrative, the poet decenters himself within the landscapes he explores. “The goal was never knowledge, but attentiveness,” he writes, “those constant bearers of meaning/ bore me.” Gander shifts perspective between first and second person, addressing his beloved companion as both “you” and “she,” and reflects on the multifaceted nature of experience: “As my memories and the present mixed, as my tumultuous inner emotions and the landscape coalesced, I felt my sense of self become kaleidoscopic.” A geologist by training, Gander sketches the natural world in ways that are strange and, at times, startlingly precise. In one poem, he describes “walking along/ into the faintly semen-smell of the middle of the night.” The eye of a just-slaughtered cow is “nicotine Saturn,” and “the spring hills boing green.” Readers will be wowed. (Oct.)