Stranger

In his third collection, Clay (A Hotel Lobby at the Edge of the World) circles around change and the recontextualization of life that change brings. A simple shift of location can alter everything: "once the trees did not need their names," he writes, "it needed no one/ to explain its madness to." Clay wrestles with small ripples that have great personal ramifications: the empty room that once held a lifetime; the new life in a cradle, demanding attention; a cross-country move that shifts what the idea of winter means. That wrestling spills out over four sections, one of which is a long meditation on the framing of life and the contexts people place themselves in every day. In language that is circular, stoic, and almost Zen-like, Clay attempts to remain himself in the face of life shifting underneath him: "the space/ a body holds in any moment// is a marker of something greater/ than ourselves." At times the circular thinking spins away from him%E2%80%94the book feels long, and the poems are very similar in tone and subject%E2%80%94but Clay's language saves these imperfections from overtaking the whole: "I'd like to maintain a consistent voice// or maybe I'd just like to maintain a consistent/ direction to cast my voice in." (Feb.)