Split horizon

Thomas Lux is the author of such books as Sunday, Half Promised Land, and The Drowned River. His poetry has been steadily growing and penetrating deeper into the plain-spoken, saturnine, witty language that he virtually invented. In his latest work, Lux's level gaze, cool talk, weird rhythms, and quirky humor place him in a special territory - entirely original - of contemporary American poetry. These new poems, like the book itself, have unusual titles ("Loudmouth Soup," "Virgule," "Each Startled Touch Returns the Touch Unstartled") and circle around their subjects in strange ways, most often dealing with the lonely oddity of the individual in a society that inflexibly ignores individuality.