Vaulting whimsy ornaments a fundamentally earnest storytelling sensibility in Kimbrell's delightful sophomore collection. Multipage poems with swiftly moving anecdotes open the volume on a strong note: Kimbrell (The Gatehouse Heaven
, 1998) explains why "the desire to walk over the dunes beyond the sea oats /... / is a desire for Ferris wheels," or lauds the slogan "NO SHERIFF GREATER THAN LOVE" in a poem called "Sometimes a Cloud Looks Like a Getaway Car Again." At the volume's close, tongue-in-cheek odes and quasiconfessional poems present similar strengths, praising Whitman ("kosmic bamboozler"), and recalling how "the yellow school bus rubbed its wheel against the curb / as if to say, Jimbo, you a fox!" The second of the volume's three parts strikes a more somber tone, commemorating the poet's mother in 15 untitled free verse elegies, which conclude, "the shape of love... is larger than the shape // of loss." Moving and honest in their accumulation of incidents, the elegies employ little of the verbal invention for which Kimbrell's other work can stand out. (July)
