VERSES THAT THINK (a review by Tony Beyer):

A poem diary that in effect is a successful, coherent book-length poem, Seasons commands attention the whole way through. The level of perception throughout is of an equal high quality.

Most of all, I admire the fullness of the text; the wealth of detail is genuinely satisfying. This is poise: receptivity without passivity and the courage to let it accumulate. Paying attention to a place doesn’t really work if you let ego get in the way. These verses think.

Among other things, the way the mood changes with the weather is natural and without affectation. As clouds make Constable’s paintings, they also make much of this poem sequence. Nice shift into the Wedding Song, too.

When the voice becomes restless as in

A man will bash
against the odds,
against the gods,
do wrong unknown

what has come before and what comes after give it context. And there’s that beautiful central image of a blind boy feeling his way over the geography of the piano: he feels out the black keys: / they are two, then three, identical hills / above a strath evenly trenched.

Also, some wonderful words, such as flumping!

Once again, the newborn know to feed.
All of flumping winter has turned to ready spring.

And he is so right about those grass spider hairnets.