American Linden

Matthew Zapruder, editor-in-chief at Verse Press, makes his own verse debut with American Linden, sure to receive cognoscenti attention, especially in Verse's home bases (New England and New York). Zapruder's hip lyricism offers both the slippery comedy and a surprisingly grave, ultimately winning, commitment to real people, emotions, locales: ""My lack of compassion astounds me,"" Zapruder explains, ""and must not come to know itself""; another poem ends as the poet himself is admonished, ""`Come back when you have something/ less riveting to say.'""