"Assorted Poems "is a generous selection from the first four books by one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary poetry. In "Bag o' Diamonds "(1993), "Smokes "(1998), "Source Codes "(2001), and "Ledger "(2005), Susan Wheeler has established herself as a poet of rare gifts. Her work is allusive and searching, sweeping over time and place, from the art of the northern Renaissance to corporate logos, observing and exploring everything with characteristic precision and intelligence. The poems are both rigorous and free, taking on our culture, its beauties and cruelties, its relationship to the past and its uncertain future. "Assorted Poems "is a vibrantly thoughtful and entertaining book, a mustread from a poet whom Harold Bloom has called "an exuberant, subtle, endlessly inventive original."