Occupations

The poems in Chris Jennings's long-awaited debut poetry collection are linked at their core by a preoccupation with the ways objects or moments become charged with meaning. Narrative occupies the territory of memory, making the most ordinary things—a classified ad, the odds and ends of an estate auction, graffiti, an antique lancet, a vegetable stand—touchstones and reliquaries of other lives. Sometimes reserved, sometimes exploring what a poet can do with excess, Jennings moves fluidly bet...