Imperfect Fit: Selected Poems

Poetry. History as content has a sharper feel to more Americans post 9/11. Martha King's work shivers with awareness of mortality and the echoes of history's violence. Wars-even those removed in time by generations-dislocate the present in many of these poems. In others, war is the long loving/hating war of parents and children, or the imperfect fit between human activity and what is called the natural world. These poems, written over the past 20 years, celebrate the ability of humor to squelch sentimental responses and the requirement of wit for free-range chickens. As the late Paul Metcalf commented, `Martha sure can be funny about death."