A roundup of bestselling poetry books

Retailers and newspapers have long kept track of the fiction and nonfiction bestsellers. The same has not been true of poetry. Booksense.com does offer a poetry Top 10 list, but only during the month of April. However, with the launch of its website (see page 14), the Poetry Foundation has introduced a weekly list of the bestselling books of verse. Rankings are based on data received from more than 4,500 retail booksellers.The five books below were listed as the top sellers in the week of March 26.

"The Trouble With Poetry" has been on the bestseller list for weeks, but that doesn't mean it's the poet's best work. (For classic Collins, see "Sailing Around the Room," No. 3.) The trouble with this book is that it's rather flat; it lacks the wit and memorable phrasing that readers have come to expect from Collins, the most popular contemporary poet in the United States. The poems - which deal with poetry and aging, among other things - are too accessible, too obvious. At times they even sound self-conscious, as with the second poem, "Monday," in which Collins explains that what the oven is to the baker, so the window is to the poet: "Just think -/ before the invention of the window,/ the poets would have had to put on a jacket/ and a winter hat to go outside/ or remain indoors with only a wall to stare at." The one stellar poem is "Flock," about sheep in a pen, unaware that their skin will soon be used in a Gutenburg Bible. This poem is compelling in ways that the rest of the book is not.

Where some poetry makes a dramatic entrance, Kooser's words fall softly. There are no hard landings in "Delights & Shadows," no edgy language. Kooser's 10th collection, which won the Pulitzer last year, is the literary equivalent of a gentle rain. As in all of his poems, Kooser begins with a simple image - a girl ice skating, a woman walking down a hospital corridor, a man fishing in an aluminum boat - and then he reveals the hidden complexities that other poets might miss. A sense of wonder and compassion runs throughout "Delights & Shadows." Yet what gives the poems their power, though, is the realization that nothing in this world can last. That underlying tension shapes the work, which is remarkably consistent in tone and quality. "Sure Signs," published in 1980, may still be Kooser's best work. But "Delights & Shadows" is an excellent introduction for readers who haven't yet discovered the work of the current US poet laureate.

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