Forty years of writing are showcased in Joseph Strouds Of This World: New and Selected Poems 1955-2006. He has published only four books previously, and may not be as well known as he ought to be. The poems in this large collection-arranged not by chronology, but as a complete poem itself-should help. The collection is capacious not only in its length, but in the range of subjects, of reading evidenced in the poems, and of the mind at work and play with those subjects. There are small, smart prose poems, longer prose pieces, haiku-like poems, narrative poems, lyrics, and odes. His poems speak from around the globe: Venice, London, Santo Domingo, Guatemala, Vietnam, Santa Cruz, Singapore. Stroud enters the minds of painters such as Goya, Brueghel, and Giotto Bondone,.... Read