Parallel Play: Poems

Flaunting your useless knowledge has failed you again,

Though it was all they had taught you.

—from "Like a Wreck"

Consult any childhood development guide and you'll find the term "parallel play": when children under two are placed together, they'll play separately but won't interact. They are more fascinated with their immediate surroundings than with each other.

Stephen Burt's second collection of poems, Paral...