New & Noteworthy Poetry, From Beethoven to Armageddon
March 2, 2021
Recent poetry of interest:
WOUND FROM THE MOUTH OF A WOUND: Poems, by torrin a. greathouse. (Milkweed, paper, $16.) The poems in this debut collection methodically subvert traditional notions of beauty, to show how they leave no room for a “transgender cripple-punk” like the author.
POPULAR LONGING, by Natalie Shapero. (Copper Canyon, paper, $17.) Shapero’s giddy, acerbic work is alert to the comedy of disconnection; in one poem, the speaker assumes that a recent restaurant boom is evidence that people “want new spots to fight, to squall / and snipe, lose their appetites.”
BEETHOVEN VARIATIONS: Poems on a Life, by Ruth Padel. (Knopf, $27.) Padel, whose previous collections include a verse biography of Darwin, here gives Beethoven the same treatment, summoning his “holy zone / of concentration” where “three descending semitones / say there is answer in the world.”