Psyche Running: Selected Poems 2005–2022

Rendered in spikily musical tones by Leeder, Grünbein’s latest (after Mortal Diamond: Selected Poems) is full of difficult consolations and a sighing sort of absurdity. Like the poet himself, these poems originate “north of Bohemia, south/ of Greenland,” acting as guides to European history ancient and modern, as well as performing a “Philosophy/ in meter” (“Configured Night”). The speaker’s voice is thoughtful, witty, and at times despairing, operating in “ochre and terracotta tones.” There are echoes of Kurt Vonnegut in Grünbein’s sequence about the destruction of his native Dresden in WWII (“it arrives in style with ‘so it goes,’ ” he writes in “Porcelain: Poem on the Downfall of My City”). In “Footnote to Myself,” Grünbein discusses modern poetry’s “expanded repertoire of facial expressions.” In these terms, his is a uniquely expressive appearance, veering from the “banana republic of the real” and “the songs that mortality sings,” to writing on the oddities and quirks of forgotten regions, “a book of superfluous things.” These eloquent, angular poems are rich in thoughtful noticing and a refreshingly idiosyncratic unpacking of history, geography, and myth. (Dec.)