The Near and Distant World

Stone (What Is Otherwise Infinite) announces the chief preoccupation of her ruminative fourth collection in the poem “Civilization and Its Discontents”: “There are two apple trees in my yard/ and I am thinking of what it means to be alive in this world.” She illustrates how this sometimes means alternating between the “black sunflower” of suicidal depression and ecstasy: “There’s always a snowstorm coming/ and I’m always booked at a café/ on the other side of the mountain/ driving in the dark/ and I am insanely happy,/ weaving along the winding cliffs” (“Old Bio in Snow”). In “Thoughts at the Grave,” the poet vividly exhumes the buried body: “In the softening box, your discarded limbs.../ morphing to wild blue phlox scattered above you./ But for some artfully yellowed dentures/ fallen back into the gritty skull.” The volume’s title poem plays on her own last name: “I am considering a stone./ Even alone I feel I am in another performance./ Even the near world is distant.” Stone’s many allusions to writers, films, philosophy, and mythology create a vibrant tapestry. The result is a psychically rich and attentive work. (Jan.)