This is the Book Sense(TM) poetry book list

Tate's poems stick the knife in a hundred different ways, but finish with the same brutal twist. He does uneasy revelations well. With mailmen sending death threats and frustrated Thanksgivings, his best poems arrive at devil's bargains and dark promises. The less successful ones dead-end with clever but unilluminating turns of phrase. As his characters, uncomfortable with their own emotions, do in "When You Are Lost," Tate's poems sometimes end up ducking questions they raised. (192 pp.) By Mary Wiltenburg

7. STAR IN MY FOREHEAD

by Else Lasker-Schuler

Holy Cow! Press, $12.95

This collection by a Jewish German expressionist largely unknown outside Germany should bring her wider renown. It's a mystical work of Hebrew ballads to her ancestral homeland, and it reflects her affinity for courageous biblical figures such as Daniel, Esther, and Joseph. Some are romantic ballads infused with pathos and longings for her mother, a motherland, or a former love. In both German and English. (121 pp.) By Leigh Montgomery

8. PLUS SHIPPING

by Bob Hicok

BOA Editions, $13.95

While Hicok isn't afraid to use humor, his poems reside in the quiet aftermath of violence or loss. His style ranges from conversational to elegiac, and many of his poems stand as short stories that in two minutes convey the impressions of years. His strongest are portraits of those who "nurtured/ revenge into elegant survival." With a meticulous eye, he observes as minds and bodies unravel. "Even failure/ is work," he writes, "even fatigue deserves its score." It's this persistence of hope and beauty that makes his verse so valuable. (96 pp.) By Timothy Rauschenberger

9. THE ROADS HAVE COME TO AN END NOW

by Rolf Jacobsen

Copper Canyon Press, $16

What a shame that Norwegian poet Rolf Jacobsen has been little known in the US. Jacobsen's stories and pictures are timeless: clouds "float back and forth through the wind's doors/ with their eternal linens in their arms"; an astronomer cries when a fly inside his telescope seems to have extinguished a star. His last 10 poems, about his wife's death, may be his best – as crisp, spare, and lovely as any you could find. (180 pp.) By Mary Wiltenburg

10. DOMESTIC WORK

by Natasha Trethewey

Graywolf Press, $12.95

Trethewey's first book, which creates a picture of African-Americans at work, is carefully rendered from old photos, history, and memory with a loving and thoughtful eye. Her work raises one's conscience with the truths inherent in simple word combinations such as "two negro men, clothes like church." And the care taken in ordering the pieces leads the reader from one poem to the next in graceful order. (64 pp.) By Tonya Miller

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