Indirect Light

Opening with a meditation on the loss of friends, Black’s powerful second collection (after Storm Toward Morning) immerses readers in the gritty New York City of his youth with unflinching honesty: “Each year, another/ far-flung friend falls in a hole// cut like a tunnel/ to the overcrowded underworld.” Blending personal history with broader themes of survival and guilt, these poems range from free verse to more structured compositions, crafting intimate narratives with expansive existential musings. In “Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, Late Spring,” he confronts his brother’s mental illness with raw intensity: “My brother flinches, gone, or gone again/ into a schizophrenic rift.” Throughout, Black transforms memory from historical fact to lived experience, as in “For the Suburban Dead,” which captures the persistence of past trauma: “I have learned to hold/ the loneliness of cities in my teeth/ like old fillings.” His vision turns streetlights into “stars/ buzzing like ghost locusts,” creating a haunting urban landscape. Black offers fresh perspectives on familiar themes of loss and survival (“I would lay myself/ down like a flower on each headstone/ if I could, but I have lost the plot/ numbers”), underscoring the struggle to honor the dead while grappling with the passage of time. Despite their often bleak subjects, these poems shine with a melancholic beauty. (Sept.)