Fugitive atlas : poems /

Throughout his new collection, Libyan-born poet/translator Mattawa (Tocqueville), who immigrated to America in his teens, blends the keen craft and heartfelt examination of human suffering that won him a MacArthur Fellowship. In the sleekly conceived abecedaria "Occupation: An Index," he ranges from "Air that shepherds/ jet fighters,/ missiles, drones" to "Zigzagged/ between the/ snipers' crosshairs," while a series each opening with a near-journalistic prose poem and ending with iridescent lyrics decries the poisoning of the waters in Flint, MI, near where he lives ("To rivers where souls/ slake their thirst, where infants/ bathe in your bitter facts"). Combined with his dignified delivery of righteous indignation is an enormous sense of what has been lost, the paradise that could have been, the need to find one's way back: "I would want to return to whittle at the damage, and to have what I was denied." VERDICT For engaged readers and those who appreciate fine poetry writing.