Wager

Wager, Adele Elise Williams’s raucous debut, celebrates the fearlessness and determination that can be wrested from strife. Early on, Williams confronts multiple challenges, both personal and communal, including persistent childhood anxieties and stunning neighborhood tragedies (“Ray down the street hung / himself like just-bought bananas needing time”). In the working-class communities she moves among, the poet tangles with her perceived failures as a wayward daughter, recovering addict, a...