Rara Avis

This pensive volume from Falconer (Forgive the Body This Failure) explores masculinity through a matrix of relationships that define and transform what it means to be a man in today’s world. Employing the metaphor of the rara avis—the rare bird—Falconer questions a heteronormative masculinity whose ideology is violently conferred: “Force-fed mice, sparrows, it couldn’t expel the bones, the claws, and died having eaten too much.” While the speaker of these poems endeavors to consider his own masculinity more thoughtfully, he often struggles to transcend his childhood experiences. In one poem, after scolding his sons for fighting in the backseat of the car, the speaker imagines his frightened children as adults confronting a masculinity that remains “a field of trees/ they can’t see through/ and must guess/ instead what lies/ beyond it.” Elsewhere, a bedtime story featuring the death of a father becomes a way for the speaker to reflect on the pathos and wonder of being both the son of a dying father and a father of two adopted sons: “Sometimes you want// a story to last forever, and sometimes/ you just want to know how it ends.” Haunting and moving, these poems wrestle with past experiences to envision new possibilities. (Sept.)