With erudite yet accessible wit, Knox (He Paves the Road with Iron Bars
) continues her exploration of just how far one can actually stretch the definition of poetry before it breaks. Like contemporary cabinets of wonders, the poems in this sixth collection display linguistic oddities, both archaic and everyday, quirky historical facts, unlikely literary references and richly extravagant diction (“O/ for a bombazine cloak the color of plankton!”). Her wildness, however, is tempered by a serious commitment to fixed forms—as one of her poems reports, this book contains “two sonnets, two haiku,/ a sestina, an homage/ to George Herbert, some tercets,/ a masque, two translations,/ two erasure poems, an elegy,/ a recipe, a song, an ABC,/ an eclogue, a canzone,/ a group of rubayyat, and other poems.” But this is a far cry from New Formalism. Knox is our most irreverent poet to revere history in its various forms. (Apr.)
