The Biscuit Joint: Poems
If Kirby gets away with a kind of uncontainable positivity in these poems, he does so in the same way that he gets away with an ode to his hands that, he seems to brag, €œhave caressed the bottoms of friends' wives who, to their credit, turned/ in surprise and, on seeing it was me, smiled indulgently/ and went back to their conversations.€ Cheerful and boyish, Kirby's new collection of poems is titled after a woodworking technique used to create an invisible joint between two disparate pieces of wood. The poems flit seamlessly from a senior discount on a cup of coffee to a €œguy out there named Señor Poetry. He' d be at a table in a plaza somewhere with his wife and daughter,/ Señora and Señorita Poetry.€ The poems are long and chatty, prosey at times, written as though Kirby was trying to keep up with some bright inspiration moving at breakneck speed. Kirby's poem €œBreathless,€ also the name of a French film and a song by Jerry Lee Lewis, adds a hint of tension to the usual ease of his subject matter, asking: €œhow do you know when to stop?€ €œIf these poems work,€ Kirby writes, €œthey work best when they move the way the mind does.€ (Aug.)