The Face of It

Visual art, French film, Shakespeare, natural history, and weather are all put under a unique microscope in this selection of poems. Originally based upon a series of notebook observations, the poems—presented in a late modernist style—range in subject from Palladian architecture to Rauschenberg’s pop art, from Bresson’s cinematography to Bottom’s dream. Demonstrating a nostalgic affection for rural English and European landscapes, these poems uncover surprise and truth in the most ordinary...