ASTRONAUT

"With no one to stop my launch into panegyric,/ I take the warp and weft/ in my hands with plans to commandeer this vessel/ into a new hemisphere." Henry, co-editor of Verse magazine and Verse books and an assistant professor of English at the University of Georgia, breaks these 40 or so mostly page-length lyrics into three sections that reflect differing postures: "Doppelgänger," "Bystander" and "Diviner." The speaker-as-bystander reports in from Dingle, Ireland; Short Pump, Va., and locations in between, while the Doppelgänger retorts, "When I get the urge to shout deluge!/ I yell jugs! instead."