cover image Floating Is Everything

Floating Is Everything

Sheryda Warrener. Nightwood (Partners Publishers Group, U.S. dist.; Harbour, Canadian dist.), $18.95 trade paper (96p) ISBN 978-0-88971-315-4

Warrener (Hard Feelings) charts wide territory in this collection of meditations on connection, isolation, bereavement, and firmament. Through three interconnected sections, Warrener traces the orbits of celestial and terrestrial bodies while navigating longing and remorse. Warrener's language is crisp and controlled, though that ends up working against the book more than for it: much of the poetry skims the surface of its subjects. Readers are always taken aloft by Warrener's work, but seldom does it soar, and the return to earth is neither generous nor gentle. Even that grounding%E2%80%94that potentially heady impact%E2%80%94has no weight to it. The entire collection feels on the cusp of something but never quite achieves it. As an aspirational endeavor, the collection is a good effort but not an efficacious one. The last line of the book sums up its contents too well: "Just past the sun deck there's something invisible worth having." In the poetry, as in that sentiment, there's great earnestness, but the engagement with the work is always just out of reach. (Dec.)