Before Dawn on Bluff Road / Hollyhocks in the Fog

Starred review from March 15, 2017
Kleinzahler's third selected volume contains two collections, each a concentration inspired by the two regions he calls home: northern New Jersey, with the New York skyline beckoning, and San Francisco, ever at the mercy of the Pacific's moods. A lyric poet, he makes much of little, squeezing every drop of interest and excitement out of what one prescient, perceptive critic identified as his principal subjects: the weather, food, and women. Confronting the world, the speaker often feels bewilderment, perhaps. And in response affects a studied casualness. Yes. That. Rarely elegiac, he cannot always resist nostalgia. In fact, these poems unfold so casually readers might not appreciate Kleinzahler's consummate mastery of line, in which delicate, exact description is jarred by muscular speech; the exquisite nuzzles the jocular. The excellence of every poem in this beautifully designed and rigorously selected double collection reinforces the significance of his project. As Kleinzahler's twelfth collection, this should confirm, if any doubts remain, that this winner of the Griffin Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award is among the best American poets writing today.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)