Mellow Actions

The poems in this aptly named collection make strong verbal gestures while at the same time refusing to emotionally engage the reader on anything more than the most casual, almost flippant, level. Though peppered with exclamation points and frequent underlining for emphasis, the poems leap so freely and quickly in their sentiments that the overall effect is of an intentionally adolescent approach to what might otherwise, sometimes, be more weighty subjects. “You were fired: I was gassed./ I’ve got your back, while/ You have my kind of front./ The Marines really seemed kind of situationally chicken, what I saw/ I guess that’s OK for boys in Orlando, the best of the great./ You read that article in Parade about Cinnabon?/ ‘Yeah,’ ” As the poems stack, the book begins to feel like one long exercise in eavesdropping in a shopping mall food court. By the end, the reader is left with a somewhat hollow, unsettled feeling, as if having been dragged through a bad dream that was just a bit too relaxed to be a nightmare. (Mar.)