"The sense of the body flowing from an old comfortable posture / to a new exciting yet strange position" is the animating force in Nathan Hoks' dazzling first collection of poems. His fine gradations of observation ("exciting yet strange") turn the reader into a barometer of strong subtleties like those of the weather, that can be minute even as they affect us powerfully. These poems are like great gulps of fresh air.
With courtly delicacy and humility belied by subtly extreme declarations and refreshingly diverse means, Nathan Hoks' poems can be one moment deceptively plain-spoken, the next broadcasting from a typhoon. Reveilles may wake us 'into some small nebula, ' but it would make of our minds and hearts comets and red giants.
