Low

Flynn’s bracing sixth collection (following I Will Destroy You) contains lyric poems and cinematic, fragmentary sequences that record the generative spaces of art, memory, and place: “The town is still dark, but there you are, as the light turns from lack to need to desire, as the wind takes the shape of you.” The title, which pays tribute to recently disbanded slow-core indie group Low, speaks to the volume’s interest in what is just below hearing. A pitiless, at times clairvoyant, sight grounds the poems: “Is this what I want, to be inside it? To not see what blurs beyond? To smudge it with my eyes?” Ultimately, human connection with the living and the dead (“Why/ in my contacts is there a folder marked/ dead people”) anchors the poet’s own precarious existence: “Maybe/ we are the reason// God made other people,/ so we could wait// together, held.” Readers ready to don the poet’s high-fidelity headphones will do well to prepare themselves for a memorable mind meld: “that was me, but now it’s you.” Flynn’s quietly commanding writing and interest in the collective experience (“{T}his is where/ we can pour ourselves—not to quiet/ the silence, but to hold what we can see a little closer”) makes this unforgettable. (Nov.)