I Love Information

The ecstatic second volume from Bush (Every Book Is About the Same Thing) wrestles with what a poem can do. “And everyone in your dreams is you/ So you never know the you you are/ And you’re the only one who does,” Bush writes in one of a series of poems titled “Katelyn,” whose winding, accumulative lines make it feel alive. The playfulness of these poems manifests as a seeking, associative voice roaming through the details it encounters: “Three angel Windsor/ Triple angel Lutz/ She found out there are only three kinds of ovens/ Sweaters finish drying on chairs/ What is there left to care about.” Though thoroughly contemporary, the poems move assuredly and timelessly in their nonlinear fashion, demonstrating how language travels through and between events. Bush makes addenda and corrections: “I painted Merritt Parkway/ Before that I invented permanent green/ Between the invention and the painting I popularized the color/ I redirected traffic and fixed everything.” These provocative and experimental poems delight. (Aug.)