The Falling Down Dance

In this spare, poignant collection, Martin (Becoming Weather) invites readers into the microcosm of new fatherhood against a wintry backdrop that produces isolation and intimacy in turn. Right away he establishes a push and pull between lyrical and ordinary language: “our unreadiness took root/ and budded true/ joy,” he writes, “I mean/ we had a baby. We named him after/ a lawyer.” In this way Martin encourages his readers to see parenthood in all its contradictions; the beautiful addition and the nexus of complication. Martin cleverly spins these complications into fresh expressions, as when he hears “Atticus/ rip open/ morning’s door/ with his wail” before wondering, “So a baby’s/ a boombox, right?” He also tenderly explores the changes in a romantic partnership when a third party is suddenly introduced: “In the other room you’re/ drinking milk, you’re giving milk, my/ two yous.” Moments of beauty like this emerge starkly amid the clutter and commerce of daily life and the winter’s stillness and monochromatic palette. From radiance to sheer panic—from “sudden dad stoned on bare/ life” to “the grounding where/ I fear not life and love/ the living”—these poems celebrate the domestic, still somewhat of a novelty coming from a male poet, and articulate the wild range of emotion a new parent experiences. (Nov.)