Flickering

Rogers's latest (after Quickening Fields) burnishes her reputation as a transcendental poet of science, with Emersonian grandiosity: "and the sublime universe existing.../ likewise inside the biding/ of the new moon and likewise/ inside the biding of the unknown/ existing inside the waking universe/ asleep inside the universe of the sublime." Verses of dizzying scope succumb to the gravitational pull of breathtakingly precise lines: "thumb-sized skulls of voles/ and anoles rattled by the slightest breeze, their minutely/ hinged jaws hanging open, each spine a string of slats/ thin as pine needles." In her introduction, the poet writes that she strove to make poems that would serve as "a moment escape, a settled hope, a brief assurance." The most ambitious poems exceed this aim: "What is it held within and among/ these stubs and crooked shafts,/ between what has happened and what/ has not, this trashy welter of leafy/ webs, tangles, rips, tears of torn rock?/ What is it living in these lines?" The book concludes with a section by the poet's son, a physical chemist and materials scientist, who documents the flickering of neural activity. His photographs of electrical impulses accompany snippets of Rogers's poems: "all asparkling, all aflickering, all aglow." This is a poignant homage to scientific attention and mystery. (Apr.)

In her latest volume of poems (following Quickening Fields), Rogers explores the synchronicity between nature and humanity--hardly surprising for someone awarded a special John Burroughs Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Nature Poetry. In her introduction, she defines flickering as a "light-hearted stance and a promise to return," and these poems flicker brightly as they move from the body outward into the world through art, beauty, and science. Along the way, she investigates the mysterious connections binding the universe: "Something abroad is knocking./ Something pervasive, resolved, unknown,/ seeks entrance. Imagine unlatching/ the gate. Envision what may pass/ through among us. Pretend to answer." Further clarifying her poems, Rogers includes an essay by her son John A. Rogers (Louis Simpson and Kimberly Querrey Prof. of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Univ.), who reveals "the flickering electrical waves present on and across the healthy brains of every living creature on the earth." VERDICT It's easy to get lost in Rogers's lush language, but there are larger issues here that will make the book appealing not just to poetry readers but to anyone concerned with the environment.--Karla Huston