Poetry. The latest in Susan M. Schultz's ongoing, cumulative epic is as gorgeous, far out, and effective as anything she's written. I love her deep but lightly held learning, her big heart, and that she's quotidian and funny. Our great poet of grief, Schultz is the calm at the center of storms of sorrow, confusion, loss, politics. Her sentences are so good they can make you (me) cry: 'My response to the death of a poet is to imitate his sentences like Matt Morris throwing Darryl Kile's curve two days after Kile died. Style's a form of grieving, one that threads out like a shawl over bent shoulders.' This--like the whole book--has her distinctive smartness, precision, and just plain beautiful writing.--Elinor Nauen