Night Watch

National Book Award finalist Young (Stones) offers an impressionistic and potent collection of sequence poems written over 16 years. Rich with epigrammatic flare (“It’s like a language,/ loss—/ can be// learnt only/ by living—there—”), Young’s work sensitively examines inheritance in poems detailing his family history in Louisiana; a sequence spoken by Millie and Christine McCoy, the conjoined African American “Carolina Twins” displayed in P.T. Barnum’s circus; and a cycle inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy. Throughout, Young’s language sings: “A wolf in silhouette—/ that whistle. The coyote/ in the quiet.// The hour of our hunger/ is his, only longer.” Highlights include his Dante cycle, which features unforgettable moments of existential insight: “We are born/ with all our grief/ already in us, like teeth,// & time works it out/ of us—our mouths—pain/ for a spell & then there// grief sits, a lifetime, shiny/ lucky” (“VI. Underworld (Circle Three)”). Young’s poems candidly and vividly trace the woven threads of loss and admiration, death and reemergence: “away from gravity/ & the cherry trees/ blooming early// before I was even ready / to believe again/ in beauty.” This elegant volume deepens the body of work by a significant American poet. (Sept.)