Born Backwards

Olson’s wise third collection (after Stay) is equal parts melodic and percussive, playing upon ideas of origin and extinction with remarkable tenderness. “Having Reached the Middle” (ironically, the final poem in the book) notes that this is “Not a nostalgia/ More a hard digging Uncover/ Stitch together a story/ that explains me to me.” Punctuation is entirely absent throughout, and even Olson’s capitalization is often more Dickinsonian than grammatically correct. These formal choices lend a heightened sense of presence, embodying the book’s notion that the past is an informant of—rather than a hurdle to—the now. The dead populate Olson’s pages not as ghosts, but as forces that alternately propel, push back, and transfix the speaker. A wonderful sense of permission emerges out of the vulnerability and brashness of Olson’s voice. In “Don’t Come Home,” the speaker advises, “Read this as you will then/ Not like school Not like/ a riddle For these/ are your poems and you/ are their people And they/ are so glad to see you again.” Olson’s poems are true companions: they speak colloquially and confessionally, administer tough love, and hold the reader’s hand, dragging them into the rural, familial, and visceral. This is a disarming, shimmering book. (July)