Take Me with You

Escape—from unhappy love relationships, bad situations and the claustrophobia of one's own identity—is the central theme of this darkly humorous second book by a young British poet. In most of these 38 poems, whimsical, fantastic and at times adorable metaphors establish a wide field of vision: "I dreamed of a far blue-green planet, / like earth, round which I drifted // softly on a weightless rope. / I made the planet smaller and more silent / by dreaming the rope longer." Fans of the American poet Matthea Harvey may find a related spirit in operation here. Levity in these poems only pretends to distract the reader and the speaker from a deeper self-loathing: "my own giant muteness, piled and blind, / unlovely and stubborn as cement." Clark (Kiss , 2000) also has a knack for poems about animals, including stingrays (who fill "all the ocean with trembling politeness"), a swan ("a pure white question / with its underwater dream in tow") and a hedgehog ("a living flinch"). Closing the volume is a several-page translation from the Chinese, which is stylistically compelling though a bit out of place. (July 17)