Poems from And Other Poems, Bad Lillies, Magma, The North, Rialto, etc.
Many of the poems have punchlines (or at least the best lines) at the end. Poems like "Mes braves" depend heavily on their final lines. For example "He sits too close and we don't look at each other" ends with "Almost the same as standing stock-still/ as the bonfire's heat advances,/ feeling its breath start to hurt your face/ as you stare back, smoke in your throat"
Several have a plot. In the first poem the persona wonders what happened to Martin, the boy who gave her a pretty stone. Maybe he's dead. Maybe he gave many people stones. The persona admits that this poem is self-centred, like everything. The stone rests on her papers but "All this is barely a blink in its lifetime/ of never loving anyone". In "Come the zombie apocalypse" the persona says they won't fight or flee. They'll stay in bed and drink themselves to death, take up smoking and admire the exhalations, "like the last dragon".
"A line of washing" is a sonnet. "Small life with cooling rack" is tighter, with only 4 rhyming sounds.
My favourite is perhaps "Drinking partner", but the strength of the book isn't so much in a few showcase pieces. Just about all the poems have an idea or line to relish. Poems like "Ferns" aren't trying to be major, but they're worth writing.
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