The Scent of Man

By turns darkly funny and achingly tender, Dabrowski’s latest (after Black Square) examines the blessing and curse of memory, and how everyday objects can hold profound significance. Dabrowski specializes in making the ordinary exceptional. In “Crayons,” for instance, a domestic scene of children coloring is elevated to dramatic heights by the poet’s flight of fancy. In “Jam Jars,” the eponymous containers are infused with whimsy as receptacles for memories: “In they pressed through every single skin pore, so/ I shut them up in separate jam jars and took them down/ to the cellar. Sometimes I remove a drop from each one,/ mix them in a glass of water and look to see what would happen.” In “This Is the End,” a former lover’s tampon left behind in the speaker’s bathroom inspires despair, then feigned indifference. Though often sardonic and witty, Dabrowski is at his best in more sincere moments, as when he writes of fatherhood or losing out on love. Clever, deeply felt, and delivered with deceptive simplicity, these poems transform the trivial into something monumental. (Oct.)