Haruko/Love Poems

This latest offering by Jordan ( Naming Our Destiny ) begins with a series of poems written in 1991 and 1992 to Haruko, her female lover. What strikes one here is the absolute fragility of love, the premonitions of future loss that invade the speaker's present. ``Then how should I / subsist / without the benediction of our bodies / intertwined / or why?'' she asks. Never answered, the question will be posed again and again with slight variations as if, in the act of writing, one finds continuance. Moving on to love poems culled from four previous volumes, the reader senses Jordan's full range. Not only is heterosexual love given its due, but one poem seems to capture the transitional moment when the speaker wavers between her love for men and the newfound possibility of loving women. Jordan's writing is sensual and hard-edged at the same time, insisting that passion exists among commonplace objects. By beginning a poem with ``but,'' Jordan makes one feel as if one has entered a room mid-conversation and is immediately included and welcome. Her throbbing, relentless rhythm is so effective that readers find themselves mouthing the words. It's impossible to sit silently back. (Feb.)