cover image The Secret Names: Poems

The Secret Names: Poems

Michael Burns. University of Missouri Press, $12.95 (56pp) ISBN 978-0-8262-0947-4

In his first book, Burns seems to grope for a subject among poems about wildflowers, motorcycles, unearthed Indian burial sites, and family and friends, as well as several short dramatic dialogues. A moodiness prevails, as the writer tries to persuade readers into an emotion. Some of the poems end with inarticulate longing, and seem to do so inevitably, without the surprise or revelation another writer might bring to the verse. Instead, we're given a generality: ``the world you know can never be the same.'' Burns escapes this template in ``Store Boy,'' ``On Lickpond Ridge'' and others, making room for the reader with images that allude rather than dictate. And in ``For What It's Worth'' he really cuts loose, writing of an ``addled heart'' and observing: ``It's like being hired/ to spy on myself.'' At times he seems to write without caring much about what he himself might feel, as though free of his own microscope. And language in other parts of the book is not as direct. When Burns writes formally-in his villanelle, ``Hunting Wildflowers,'' for example-his rhymes sometimes force unnatural line breaks; pausing on the last word of a line or stanza can hinder ordinary rhythms of speech. (Oct.)