Lines: Poems

Tim Nolan's new collection charms us with its subtle blend of boyish nostalgia and cosmic reverie. He imbues such everyday activities as raking leaves (but in spring, when they resemble regrets), seeing a fox in the yard, with sweetness and significance, while also giving weighty themes such as warfare, Christianity, and the meaning of life a thoughtful personal twist. The very first poem sets the tone, as Nolan follows a fractured early-morning logic from a simple phrase, The beginning of the beginning, which he likes, to the Cole Porter tune Beguine the Beguine. By the end of the poem he's longing to rumba around the room, but is too embarrassed to do so, while also fearing that he's about to lose his mind--which might be the beginning of the end. Time and again in subsequent poems Nolan maintains an easy rapport between metaphysical musing and the common experiences that we all come to hold dear. One poem is devoted to the smell of watermelon, another to watching the freckles grow darker on his mother's skin as summer advances, at an age when he has not yet learned the word freckles. With Lines Nolan has entered the company of Anselm Hollo, Louis Jenkins, and other poets who trust in their own native impressions and patterns of thought in making sense of the modern world, and reminding us of its latent beauty and mystery.