Out of the Woods

The winning volume in the 1988 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition is Out of the Woods by Thomas Bolt. As James Merrill, distinguished poet and judge of the competition, has said: "Here is an up—to—date pastoral: wrecked cars, glades of debris, polluted streams, all gravely held in Thomas Bolt's unflinching gaze. 'I had found,' he writes, 'the secret center of America.' Given this wealth of evidence, its bleakness and sparkle, we can almost bring ourselves to believe him."


A Hill in V...