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I've read two other Kevin Young collections, Book of Hours: Poems and Brown: Poems. Here's an unexpected advantage to using Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ: Looking back on past reviews, you see trends.

Examples? In one I complained about the profusion of extremely short lines (usually 3-5 words). In other I noted a section of the book that was exclusively short-lined tercets.

Ah. Two observations that feed THIS review. Except for one, single-stanza'd list poem, this entire new collection of Young's is the poetry of tercets, occasionally with a single-lined finish. In all cases, too, the middle line is indented two tabs.

Young knows what he likes and likes what he knows, so for that he goes. Lots of random (not formal) rhyming and slant rhyming too. But again, no designs.

The trouble? The constant diet of same old, same old leavened his work with monotony. Not a great thing. Some enjoyable poems here, to be sure, but a lot of take-it-or-leave-it as well.

Beautiful artwork on the cover. Hardback, as you'd expect from a veteran hand who happens to be a professor and the poetry editor at The New Yorker (raises hand to ask where he finds time in a day).

Here's a poem I enjoyed in the collection that appeared in The Orion (note: you'll have to imagine the middle-lined indentations on second lines of the tercets as GR is not HTML friendly, except for a few limited tricks like "roll over" and, at times, "play dead"):

Egrets
Kevin Young

Some say beauty
may be the egret
in the field

who follows after
the cows
sensing slaughter�

but I believe
the soul is neither
air nor water, not

this winged thing
nor the cattle
who moan

to make themselves
known.
Instead, the horses

standing almost fifteen
hands high�
like regret they come

most the time
when called.
Hungry, the greys eat

from your palm,
³Ù±ð²Ô»å±ð°ù-³Ù´Ç´Ç³Ù³ó±ð»åâ€�
their surprising

plum-dark tongues
flashing quick
& rough as a match�

your hand, your
arm, startled
into flame.