Boleros (Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets, 54)

Like Jay Wright's previous poetry, Boleros provokes in the reader "a passion for what is hidden," emphasizing names--of places, muses, saints' days--and the imaginative histories behind them. As always, the linguistic surface changes rapidly as Wright's geographic journeys become explicit explorations of poetic form. Boleros is more than a conventional collection of poems. Each part of the book connects to, engages with, and changes the others, so the book itself becomes a text in motion. These poems perform the creative process itself and succeed exquisitely in making the reader part of that process and its excitement.