Sublunary concerns

Sherod Santos --> reviewed by Callie Siskel -->

The designation “New and Selected Poems” sets up an unequal opposition. New poems are forced to compete with a selection representing the writer’s best work. Thus the odds are stacked against them. This is especially true in the case of The Intricated Soul: New and Selected Poems by Sherod Santos, whose early work is so exceptional.

Santos’s best poems reflect his high-stakes concerns as reflected by such titles as “On the Last Day of the World” “The Breakdown,” “Hymn to Necessity,” and “A Writer’s Life.” Yet the poems stay on the page. Clear, contained, and illustrative, they remain within the reader’s grasp....