Wanders by Robin Blaser & Meredith Quartermain (Nomados $10)
This chapbook of parallelograms came about when Mr. Blaser faxed a poem to Ms. Quartermain. Her desire "to respond in kind" rather than analyze, to translate his poem into her own as an act of reading, led to their "wandering" together over several months. The lyrical results are at times playful and quirky, narrative and straightforward, thought-provoking and dense. Writes he: "The clock is back, / tick and talk-- / time has such nonchalance." Writes she: "allure to earth / sculpt and delve / weight pulls time's curve to ground."

Planet on the Table: Poets on the Reading Life, editors Sharon Bryan & William Olsen (Sarabande $16.95)
Writers by needs, desire -- even compulsion -- are readers. Their revelations of what, how, and whom they read can cast new light not only on those texts but on their own work. Twenty-five poets contributed essays on the subject for this volume, among them Robin Behn, Marvin Bell, Madeline DeFrees, Stephen Dunn, Albert Goldbarth, Mark Halliday, Maxine Kumin, Carl Phillips, David Wojahn, and Adam Zagajewski. Exhorts Mr. Zagajewski, "Young poet, please read everything,.read for yourself, read for the sake of your inspiration, for the sweet turmoil in your lovely head, but read also against yourself, for questioning and helplessness, read for despair and learning."

To Sound Like Yourself: Essays on Poetry by W.D. Snodgrass (BOA Editions $18)
Mr. Snodgrass certainly sounds like himself in these wide-ranging essays on poetry, focusing in particular on its music. Who else would illustrate rhythm with descriptions of caring for an orphaned owl with his third wife (and blissfully finding the adult owl with his fourth), the belly dancing joints of Detroit, and an apple orchard? His essays can be serious (a contemplation of Whitman's life and work, a detailed discussion of "Meter, Music, Meaning") and also delight in the playful and iconoclastic -- his piece "Disgracing Are the Verse" includes a lengthy list of the language games of childhood (and adulthood for that matter).

The Only Time We Have by Samuel Green (Grey Spider Press $20/ limited edition $50)
Time and place are the actors of these poems, and Mr. Green is a sweetly attentive audience to their consequence. There are love poems here, both quiet and passionate, and there are poems of grief. Throughout this book are short pieces titled "Postcard" followed by a date. Their dance around that date central to our current era, including "Postcard: September 11/01," makes fine and subtle use of this emotional touchstone. Mr. Green is an observer who reports what he sees with an exact, delicate touch. Please note: Mr. Green is reading at Open Books on Thursday, February 20, at 7:30.

The World Is Round by Nikky Finney (InnerLight $14.95)
Those who had the good fortune to see Ms. Finney read in Seattle several years ago likely have been waiting for this book. Ms. Finney, a Black woman steeped in the American South, writes with a rare combination of grace, intelligence, imagination, and commitment. It would not be wrong to liken her to Gwendolyn Brooks, and that is high praise. These are truly stellar poems written with love, humor, and rage. She recounts, in "The Girlfriend's Train," having an audience member at a reading say, "You write like a Black woman who's never been hit before." Her considerable power stems from her certainty and skill, and an inviolate character rare to every race.

Lavish Absence: Recalling and Rereading Edmond Jabès by Rosmarie Waldrop (Wesleyan $17.95)
Ms. Waldrop has given us a moving, revealing, and beautifully written account of her friendship with the author Edmond Jabès and of her relationship to his amazing and mysterious work. Born in Cairo, Jabès (1912-1991) was expelled with other Jews during the Suez crisis in 1956 and settled in France. He is best known for The Book of Questions, The Book of Resemblances, and The Book of Limits - unique and profound texts that merge philosophy and poetry. Ms. Waldrop is the primary translator of Jabès's writing, and her thoughts on his work and on the act of translation itself -- not to mention her memories of him -- are exhilarating to read.

Bunny by Selima Hill (Bloodaxe $17.95)
British poet Selima Hill has long been a store favorite. Her work is gracefully edgy, darkly comic, and bristling with startling, unusual imagery. _Bunny_, her seventh collection, almost tells the unsettling tale of a girl, a house, and a male lodger. Ms. Hill has boiled out the straightforward narrative of her story, letting glimpses, snapshots, and dreams convey its pungent essence.

Local Visitations by Stephen Dunn (Norton $21.95)
In his twelfth collection, Mr. Dunn sets the extraordinary in the ordinary and illuminates both -- Sisyphus released from his burden and settled in an American suburb; famous 19th century novelists residing in contemporary South Jersey towns. Also here are his keen, calm, and occasionally wry depictions of the ambiguities of our relationships to each other, our gods, and the world -- "It's on a clear surface we can best see / The signs point many ways."

Random Symmetries: The Collected Poems of Tom Andrews (Oberlin $22.95)
Tom Andrews was a terrific writer who had an unenviable wealth of personal material to draw on. He died in 2001 at the age of 40, having published two collections of poetry, The Brother's Country and The Hemophiliac's Motorcycle. Those two books, along with two unpublished manuscripts and two uncollected poems, comprise this volume. Mr. Andrews was a hemophiliac who rode a motorcycle competitively. He was absorbed by the life of Saint Augustine. He entered the Guinness World Book of Records for continuous clapping at the age of eleven. And he wrote poignantly and luminously about the mundane and the elevated. We are glad to have this collection in the store.