Heroic measures

David Bergman's new collection, Heroic Measures, opens with a section of poems that speak directly of male relationships and desire. A second grouping depicts images of art, giving us glimpses of Goya, Eakins, Mozart, and Mapplethorpe. Other poems provide an enlightening journey into religion and myth. In the final section, Bergman turns to his family, with poems about his parents, their aging, and his childhood. The result of this structure is to show the course of a life as a progression backward and forward, the journeying, the false starts and successes of the pursuit of love and the practice of art set against the dangers and structures of the past and present.