The Wrecking Light

Robertson's fourth collection is astonishing in its eclecticism; the poems touch on family, folklore, mythology, religion, travel, sex, shame, love, violence%E2%80%94and nature. The book is divided into three sections%E2%80%94"Silvered Water," "Broken Water," and "Unspoken Water"%E2%80%94whose titles reflect Robertson's obsession with the sea and humankind's relationship with the natural world. In "Signs on a White Field," the narrator "walk[s] out onto the lake./ A living lens of ice... breathing, readjusting its weight and light." In "Law of the Island," nature is no longer restorative but an instrument of torture: "Over his mouth and eyes/ they tied two live mackerel... and pushed him/ out from the rocks." A woman bears four sons in "At Roane Head," "web-footed... more/ fish than human" whom her husband eventually murders, "relaxing them/ one after another/ with a small knife." But it is "The Plague Year" that poses the question at the heart of this collection: "What is there left/ to trust but this green world and its god,/ always returning to life?" (Aug.)