Rava) ‘Small Story About the Sky ‘Alberto Rios. Copper Canyon (Consortium, dist), $16 trade paper (110p) SBN 9780- 8101-3080-7 “Feeding the birds, by accidene [spill the seed,” writes Rios (The Dangers Shirt), Acizona’s frst poet laureate, in the ‘opening Lines ofhis 13th volume. Pigeons food the scene, and suddenly the average becomes che extraordinary. For Rios, the spilling of seed and the coming of birds are together a sign that a normal day has not been broken, bue fraceured. In that fracture time and place seem to form a prism; anything is possible. Rios peppers his book with listlike sonnets wherein nature becomes a vehicle for conjuring, ‘magic and telling the stories ofehe bor- derlands between the U.S. and Mexico. “The border is mighty, but even the parting ofthe seas created a path, not a barriet.” For Rios that path involves the “fierce what-was in all of us,” the varied universes that exist in ou lives—not so much Brose’ “rad less traveled” as both roads at once. Here a humble catele fence becomes the terrifying, mesmerizing. * Blue Fasa border fence; rabbits run ina field, and the specters of INS agents appear in a backyard. There is an order eo history, co ancestry, bue “the immense elephant of things” is inexplicable and rarely sensible Rios knows this and doesn’t shy from it; hhe embraces i. (May) The Sugar Book Johannes Géransson Tarpaulin Sky (SPD, dist), $18 trade paper (208) ISBN 978.1- 939460-035 Doubling down om his trademark mis- anthropic imagery amid a pageancry of the unpleasant, Géransson (Hane Surveillance) stollstheough a violent Los ‘Angeles in this hybrid of prose and verse. ‘The central figure, father/husband and grotesque stand-in forthe author, peppers his purposefully discurbing images with crooked aphorisms. “Once [had a giel- friend who liked co/ collect my sperm ina ‘glass ampule./Ican'c cll the difference anymore/ between mass graves and. Duchamp,” he declaims in one poem. The motifs are plentiful and varied, including ‘constant reworkings of image-driven Nathaniel Mackey. New Directions, $16.95 trade paper (160p) ISBN 978.08112-2445-1 ‘ackey, winner of the 2006 National Book Award for poccry, “continues Nad Hans's continuation of Splay ‘Anion and the work that came before ie” ashe extends ‘ovo interwoven and ongoing serial poems: Song of Andounbeaoa and “Mu.” Commanding. in theie cerebral and ‘ musical reach, the poems do not require knowledge of pee- vious installments, though hints to the themes here ate foun in the collection’ ite, which references the West African griot tradition and jazz eeurmpeter Kenny Docham's song, “Blue Bossa.” Mackey’ epic mode is one in which place, time, and personae collide and shapeshift, rendering a definitive origin or conclusion somewhat irrelevant. Indeed, this collection opens with a fraying of the self, irs pulled apart by love, asthe beréft narrator laments, "Insofar, this! ‘was to say, as chere was an I it was! no other, of late letting go no getting/ out. soft” consteuction reverberates ue saw myself I saw, no parallel/ crack.” The throughout as quasimythic travelers are shaped and taken apart by forces personal, historical, environmental, and metaphysical. What exists always exists in relation ship to its negation, opening an elastic space in which form and dissolution mai tain a fast-paced, flexible dialectic dance. Mackey tracks a knowledge “gone by the time we heard! i, galactic Light's late arival/ an acoustic stand-in, light-year- like/ but shrunken, Moment’ remit/an/ odd sonic perfunie.” The book itself fol- lows in this pattern of continual deparcures, sustained in Mackey’s remarkable erudition and singular lyric virtuosity. (May) 52 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY APRIL 20, 2015 ideas, among them prostitution, pubic hair, Orpheus, law, pigs, disease, and Francesca Woodman. There are also occa- sional mysteries and plots buried inthe progression, such asthe death ofa starlet and the speaker's hunger for cocaine and copulation. l's a peojec skewed toward immersion rather than critique, and one tht finds home for lines such as “We're s0 fucking skinny when we'ee whiee/ we sometimes go backwards and become homosexuals’ or just choke in hotels. 'm so white, 'm your lover! You're so whice you're more beautiful chan Nagasaki.” ‘The purpose ofthis subjection is rarely cleat, but amid the misfires is also insight, and fans of Géransson’s distorted poetics will find hisa productive addition to his body of work. (May) ‘Swan Feast Natalie Ebert. Coconut ($PO, dst) $15 trade paper (92p) 188 978-1.938085-25-2 Elbert’ lush, dense debue collection records a woman's journey to take back sovereigney over her body from the anorexia that has swallowed it, The poems take a numberof forms— including epistles, epithalamiums, ‘modified sonnets, and discursive free vverse—and center on the conjured spirit of the Venus of Willendorf:asmall,lime- stone figurine of a female with exagger- ated feacures chat dates tothe Paleolihic period. The speaker, N, claims his spirie asher guide through a batcle with anorexia, with Venus, V, presented pri~ marily a5 an incelligene ("V speaks, chis time she says! The death and lifeof great American cities is abmut negotiating influences «and the inpresions of tizens"Yand proudly voracious woman (she wilds! for nothing but calories and sex") Yee Vhas an aleee ego that manifests asa shamelessly over- sexed socalice:"Fm in the center of chemical rainstorm, naked as stone, legs smoother than the mireors lid down for the biehday cocaine.” The multiple voices swie like a collision ofr and cold fronts; they contradicechemselves and combat each other inthe way chat one’s own mind operates in seeking asin- ular voice of reason co follow. Filber’s array of referents can be dizzying, but her incoxicating language is sure to keep readers under her spel. (May)