Original, inventive: we want our poets to be bold. We want the poems to add up to more than the sum of their parts. We want the sublime, the open-to-the-bone exclamation of epiphany. And we’d like the poem to be smart but not too intellectual. Why not? In her second book, The Irrationalist, Suzanne Buffam […]

Nature can be good for us. In a recent study, Japanese scientists found that walking through a forest or other wooded area for a few hours reduced concentrations of the stress hormone cortisol in subjects and lowered blood pressure. Other studies show green areas alleviate anxiety and depression.

Beginning with the decorative language poem, “Drip drip drip drip drip drip drop / …,” that serves as the book’s frontispiece to the lively rift of forty-five names for “the city I cannot name” (after T. S. Eliot’s “Unreal City”) in the title poem, John Beer’s language fuels a successful momentum.