For Love Of Common Words : Poems

When narrative poetry fails, it's often because it focuses too much on the "narrative" and not enough on the "poetry." Steve Scafidi avoids this pitfall entirely in his second collection. He pays homage to the "old, weird America" in "Habits of the North American Sasquatch," to women and motherhood in "Witness to the Work," and to that all-American response to critique in "Ode to the Middle Finger." You'd never guess Scafidi is a cabinet-maker in West Virginia. Then again, what better job could a poet have . . .